Victory over Borussia and a miracle: what Shakhtar needs to reach the Champions League knockout stage.

On paper, the "miners" still have a chance to advance to the tournament playoffs, although the hope is quite slim. For this to happen, several factors must align simultaneously.

The first and foremost is a victory over Borussia.

Any other result would extinguish the Donetsk club's chances of moving to the next stage. From there, it becomes even more challenging. To better understand, let's imagine that Shakhtar won against Borussia by a narrow margin of 1:0.

Then, it is necessary for three out of these six conditions to be met:

1. Benfica loses to Juventus by 8+ goals;
2. PSG loses to Stuttgart by 8+ goals;
3. Sporting loses to Bologna by 7+ goals;
4. Stuttgart loses to PSG by 5+ goals;
5. Manchester City drops points in their match against Brugge;
6. Dinamo Zagreb drops points in their match against Milan.

*the goal difference in these conditions is inversely proportional to the difference in the Shakhtar match. Thus, if Shakhtar wins by 3 goals (two more than in the example), the difference in conditions decreases by 2.

It is important to understand that meeting at least three of these conditions guarantees Shakhtar a spot in the Champions League knockout stage. This is crucial.

Bookmakers' Predictions

So, I think it's clear to everyone that the chances of Marino Pusich's team making it to the playoffs are quite slim. Bookmakers believe the same. The "miners" have the highest odds among ALL clubs still vying for a spot in the top-24.

Domestic bookmakers are accepting bets on this with odds of 125.00 (!). For Stuttgart, the odds are 1.55. Meanwhile, the highest odds among Shakhtar's competitors, Dinamo Zagreb, stand at 9.00.

Therefore, yes, Shakhtar can only be helped by a victory over Borussia and a miracle...