Shakhtar vs Feyenoord: Rotterdam coach Slot lost to Lucescu and defeated Babich

On March 9, with a duel in Warsaw, Shakhtar will start a two-legged confrontation with Feyenoord in the 1/8 finals of the Europa League. For the Pitmen’s mentor Igor Jovicevich, this will be the first meeting with representatives of the Dutch football. But Feyenoord head coach Arne Slot already has experience playing against Ukrainian clubs. So far, the asset of the specialist in the confrontation with our teams is equality: victory, draw and defeat.

“Virtually all football experts in the Netherlands say that Slot wants his team to be able to play total football. He squeezes absolutely everything out of his wards, literally the maximum. It’s not for nothing that Shakhtar’s future rival in the Europa League takes first place in its championship,” said the ex-midfielder of the Ukrainian national team, and now the head of the Trade Union of Football Players of the Netherlands, Yevhen Levchenko, in an interview with Sport Arena.

44-year-old Arne Sloth is really a godsend of the Rotterdam club management. The specialist, who previously worked with AZ Alkmaar, led the team in the summer of 2021. During this time, as mentioned above, Feyenoord won the bronze of the national championship, reached the final of the Conference League and is in the lead this season of the Eredivisie. Slot, by the way, has a rather high score – 2.07 on average per match. Working with AZ coach and intersected with Ukrainian teams.

Passage of Mariupol

For the first time, the then 40-year-old Slot faced our clubs in the summer of 2019 as part of the Europa League qualification. Then in the third round of selection of his AZ Alkmaar met with Mariupol, which was headed by Alexander Babich.

The first match, which, for obvious reasons, Mariupol spent in a relatively peaceful time for our country not in his native city, but in Odessa, the teams parted in peace – 0:0. But in the second leg, held in The Hague, AZ simply took out Babich’s team – 4:0.

The hosts scored two goals in the first half, two after the break. True, the latter was Yavorsky’s own goal. For Mariupol, by the way, defender Viktor Kornienko Gornyakov, midfielder Dmitry Topalov, who came out in the second leg as a substitute, played then.

Lost to Dynamo

A year later, Slot, along with AZ Alkmaar, crossed paths with Dynamo. Also in the qualification of the European Cup, though already the Champions League. Due to the post-COVID season, the round consisted of one match, and Dynamo played the match in the third stage of qualification at home.

Mircea Lucescu only led the White-Blues, and the match with AZ was the first for the Romanian specialist at the helm of Dynamo in European competition. It turned out well: Dynamo won 2:0, thanks to goals from Rodriguez and Shaparenko. And then – passed Gent, winning both matches, and reached the group stage of the Champions League.

Let’s see how the confrontation with Jovićević and Shakhtar will turn out for Slot and now Feyenoord.