Champions League Betting – Shakhtar Donetsk vs. Bayern Munich
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
Shakhtar Donetsk (+850) vs. Bayern Munich (-300) (Draw +400)
Bayern Munich and Shakhtar Donetsk are set to meet in the Champions League Round of 16. The first leg of their home-and-home series will kick-off tomorrow at Arena Lviv (2:45 p.m. Eastern).
Bayern Munich has a negative record playing in the Ukraine (1-1-3); however, the Bavarians are big favorites to pick up a road win tomorrow, sitting at -300 in the moneyline; Shakhtar is a +850 home underdog and the draw is at +400.
In the handicap, Bayern is a one-goal fave.
Looking at their respective performacnes in the Group Stage, it’s no surprise that the Germans are a massive favorite. Bayern went 5-0-1 in a veritable group of death (with Man City, AS Roma, and CSKA Moscow), scoring 16 goals and conceding just four. They also won three games by at least two goals.
Shakhtar, meanwhile, barely escaped Group H (which featured Porto, Athletic Bilbao, and BATE Borisov, arguably the weakest for the eight quartets), finishing the round-robin portion 2-3-1 and just two points ahead of Bilbao.
Shakhtar had an impressive +9Â goal difference, but that was thanks to beating up on BATE Borisov 7-0. (The Belarusians finished the Group Stage with an embarrassing -22Â goal difference.)
This will be Shakhtar’s third appearance in the Round of 16. In 2012-13, they were ousted by Borussia Dortmund; in 2010-11, they advanced to the quarterfinals after beating AS Roma.
Meanwhile, Bayern Munich will be looking to reach the Quarterfinals for the fifth time in the last six years.  The only time the team failed to reach the final eight in that span was in 2010-11 when they were thwarted by Inter Milan in the Round of 16.
Despite Shakhtar being a massive underdog against one of the best clubs in Europe, coach Mircea Lucescu is optimistic. And his optimism at least has a foundation in reality; Shakhtar striker Luiz Adriano is currently the top scorer of the tournament with nine goals in six games.
“Naturally Bayern are favorites but in football anything is possible,” said Lucescu. “I always trusted him [Adriano].”
Perhaps the most telling trend heading into this game is that Shakhtar Donetsk has not beaten a Bundesliga team at home in the past 35 years.
Don’t expect that streak to end tomorrow.
(Photo credit: André Zehetbauer (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
