Atalanta v Shakhtar Donetsk facts

Atalanta's introduction to the UEFA Champions League proved a chastening experience and the Italian club will hope for better in their first home fixture, in Milan against a Shakhtar Donetsk side who were also well beaten on matchday one.

• While Atalanta marked their first ever game in the competition with a 4-0 reverse away to a Dinamo Zagreb side who had lost their previous 11 group matches, Shakhtar were going down 3-0 at home to Manchester City – and the pair will know they can ill afford to slip further off the Group C pace, even at this early stage.

• This is the sides' first meeting, and Atalanta's first match against a Ukrainian club.

Form guide
Atalanta
• The matchday one defeat at Dinamo made it three European matches without a win or a goal for Atalanta (D2); it also ended their seven-match unbeaten run in continental competition (W3 D4).

• Defeat at Dinamo was only Atalanta's second in their last 15 European games (W7 D6).

• This is Atalanta's 37th European match, and their seventh campaign in continental competition. They reached the European Cup Winners' Cup semi-finals in 1987/88 and the UEFA Cup quarter-finals three years later.

• Third in Serie A in 2018/19, their highest ever finish, and Coppa Italia runners-up, this is Atalanta's third successive European campaign. They came through the UEFA Europa League group stage in 2017/18, losing to Borussia Dortmund in the round of 32 (2-3 a, 1-1 h), and were beaten 4-3 on penalties by Copenhagen in the play-offs of the same competition in 2018/19 after the tie had finished goalless; Atalanta had earlier eliminated Sarajevo (10-2 aggregate) and Hapoel Haifa (6-1).

• Atalanta are unbeaten in 12 European home matches (W6 D6), since a 2-1 defeat against Belgian side Mechelen in the 1987/88 European Cup Winners' Cup semi-final second leg (2-4 aggregate). That is their only European defeat in their 17 home matches (W10 D6).

• Atalanta are the only team to be making their group stage debut in 2019/20 – they are the tenth Italian club to feature and the 141st overall.

• Atalanta are playing their home matches in the group stage at San Siro, home of AC Milan and Internazionale.

Shakhtar
• The matchday one defeat at home to Manchester City in Kharkiv made it one win in eight UEFA Champions League matches for Shakhtar (D3 L4).

• Quarter-finalists in 2010/11, Shakhtar won only one of their six matches in last season's group stage, collecting six points to finish behind City and Lyon in Group F. They picked up only two points at home, drawing with Hoffenheim and Lyon and losing to City, before losing 6-3 on aggregate to Eintracht Frankfurt in the UEFA Europa League round of 32 (2-2 h, 1-4 a).

• A 3-2 victory at Hoffenheim on matchday five last season is Shakhtar's only win in their last ten European matches (D4 L5).

• The Donetsk club picked up four points away from home in last season's group stage; the win at Hoffenheim was only their second in their last 12 away UEFA Champions League matches, group stage to final (D2 L8).

• Shakhtar have got out of their UEFA Champions League group in three of their last six participations.

• The Pitmen have won only one of their 11 games in Italy (D2 L8), a 3-2 success at Roma in the 2010/11 UEFA Champions League round of 16 first leg (6-2 aggregate). Their last visit brought a 1-0 defeat against the same opponents, and elimination on away goals from the same stage of the 2017/18 competition (2-2 aggregate).

• Shakhtar qualified as winners of the Ukrainian league, claiming the title for the 12th time in 2018/19, when they completed a domestic double for the third season in succession.

Links and trivia
• Atalanta's Ukrainian international midfielder Ruslan Malinovskyi started his career with Shakhtar, coming through the youth ranks before breaking into the first team in 2011. He was a Shakhtar player until 2017 but never played for the first team, having loan spells at a number of other clubs including Sevastopol and Zorya Luhansk, before leaving for Genk in 2015, initially on loan; he made the move to the Belgian club permanent in May 2017.

• Malinovskyi played 44 games and scored seven goals in the Ukrainian Premier League for Zorya Luhansk, where he was a team-mate of Shakhtar's Andrii Totovytskyi.

• Atalanta captain Alejandro Gómez played in Ukraine with Metalist in 2013/14 alongside Marlos, now at Shakhtar. His two games against Shakthar ended in a 1-1 draw and a 4-2 defeat.

• Josip Iličić was part of the Slovenia side that lost 3-1 on aggregate to Ukraine in the UEFA EURO 2016 play-offs; Andriy Pyatov, Taras Stepanenko and Yevhen Konoplyanka featured for the Zhovto-Syni.

• Atalanta's Guilherme Arana and Shakhtar's Dodô played together for Brazil U20s in 2016/17.

• International team-mates:
Ruslan Malinovskyi & Andriy Pyatov, Serhiy Kryvtsov, Taras Stepanenko, Viktor Kovalenko, Marlos, Bohdan Butko, Mykola Matviyenko, Yevhen Konoplyanka, Serhiy Bolbat, Júnior Moraes (Ukraine)

Latest news

Atalanta
• Summer transfers
In: Luis Muriel (Sevilla), Ruslan Malinovskyi (Genk), Guilherme Arana (Sevilla, loan), Simon Kjær (Sevilla, loan)
Out: Etrit Berisha (SPAL, loan), Federico Mattiello (Cagliari, loan), Gianluca Mancini (Roma), Andreas Cornelius (Parma, loan), Dejan Kulusevski (Parma, loan), Luca Vido (Crotone, loan), Nicolas Haas (Frosinone, loan), Arkadiusz Reca (SPAL, loan))

• Atalanta scored twice in the final six minutes to rescue a 2-2 draw at home to Fiorentina on 22 September, Josip Iličić halving the deficit with his first goal of the season before Timothy Castagne, back in the team following a knee injury in the summer, earned the Bergamo side a draw five minutes into added time.

• Atalanta have won all four away games in Serie A this season, triumphing 2-0 at Roma on 25 September thanks to goals from Duván Zapata and a late Marten de Roon header, and 4-1 at Sassuolo on Saturday, a victory that took them up to third in the table.

• All the visitors' goals at Sassuolo came in the first 35 minutes; it was the first time they had scored four in an away Serie A game during the first half since January 2001.

• Zapata now has five goals in his last five league games; Alejandro Gómez scored twice at Sassuolo, his first goals of the season.

• Atalanta have won ten away top-flight games in 2019, fewer only than Manchester City (11) in Europe's top five leagues.

• The victory in Rome was Atalanta's only clean sheet of the season.

• Atalanta had scored in the 90th minute or later in three successive Serie A games before Saturday's early flurry.

• Nine of Atalanta's 15 league goals this season have come in the second half, with eight in the final half-hour.

• Luis Muriel missed the games at Roma and Sassuolo with tonsillitis.

• Atalanta signed Martin Škrtel on 9 August, but his contract was cancelled by mutual consent three weeks later.

• On 9 September Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini was made an honorary citizen of Bergamo.

Shakhtar
• Summer transfers
In: Yevhen Konoplyanka (Schalke), Vitão (Palmeiras)
Out: Ivan Petryak (Fehérvár), Oleksandr Zubkov (Ferencváros, loan), Oleg Danchenko (Rubin), Ivan Ordets (Dinamo Moskva), Valeriy Bondarenko (Vitória SC, loan), Eduard Sobol (Club Brugge, loan), Wellington Nem (Fluminense, loan), Olarenwaju Kayode (Gazişehir Gaziantep, loan), Gustavo Blanco Leschuk (Antalyaspor), Fernando (Sporting CP, loan)

• Luís Castro replaced his Roma-bound compatriot Paulo Fonseca as Shakhtar head coach in June.

• Shakhtar opened this season with a 2-1 Ukrainian Super Cup loss to Dynamo Kyiv, their third defeat in four years in the competition against their great rivals.

• That is Shakhtar's only domestic defeat this season; their first nine league games have brought nine wins, 28 goals scored and only six conceded.

• On Friday Shakhtar defeated Vorskla Poltava 4-0 at home.

• Valeriy Bondar, the captain of the Ukraine side that won the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Poland this summer, and Yevhen Konoplyanka both marked their first starts for Shakhtar with a goal against Vorskla.

• Júnior Moraes also scored on Friday and now has eight goals and four assists in Shakhtar's 11 competitive matches this season.

• On 22 September Shakhtar won 1-0 at second-placed Desna Chernigiv thanks to a Marlos goal.

• Shakhtar are now unbeaten in 38 league games (W33 D5), since a 1-0 away loss to Dynamo Kyiv on 3 August 2018.

• Their winning streak in the Ukrainian league is now 11 games.

• Marlos has six goals and two assists in 11 games for Shakhtar this season.