Ukrainian club won the UEFA Cup for the first and last time. Mircea Lucescu's Donetsk team managed to defeat German "Werder" in a difficult match for themselves and bring Ukraine its first European trophy in 23 years.

The striking force of Lucescu's attack consisted of five Brazilians at once, while among Ukrainians in the starting lineup there was room only for goalkeeper Pyatov and a pair of central defenders - Chyhrynskyi and Kucher. Instead, the overwhelming majority of the Bremen team consisted of Germans - but such are the realities of Ukrainian football and the politics of our leading clubs.

The teams started the game at high speeds. The nominal guests in the opening minutes gave the initiative to the Ukrainian club. "Shakhtar" without delaying matters began with an active search for paths to the opponent's goal. Particularly memorable in the opening minutes was the right flank of the "miners," where Ilsinho and Fernandinho operated with the support of Srna. The Donetsk side created the first chance of the match in the central zone, although before that the attack had been developing on the right wing. Jadson received the ball in the center before the penalty area and passed it through to Adriano. The Brazilian forward shot with one touch but missed the goal. The first time, but not the last in the match.

The Germans responded a couple of minutes later with a Baum shot from outside Pyatov's domain - the ball went far from the goal, however the Ukrainian club's defense allowed the "Werder" player to receive and lay the ball off to a partner.

Only around the tenth minute did the German team manage to get a foothold on the ball, but "Werder" could not create any danger. Until the first goal, both teams showed nothing substantial in attack, but in the 25th minute the Brazilians managed to set up Adriano for a meeting with Wiese, and the Donetsk forward easily chipped the Bremen goalkeeper - 1:0.

After the goal was scored, the "miners" immediately "sat" back toward their goal, and even seemed to be running down the clock. However, there can be no complaints about Lucescu's team in the first half - except... for the main goalkeeper of the Ukrainian national team. It was Andriy Pyatov who unpleasantly surprised all the fans of the Donetsk team, first with a mistake after a powerful free kick by the German Brazilian Naldo. Instead of confidently punching the shot away, Andriy tried to catch it and dropped it into the goal - 1:1.

A few minutes later Pyatov made a mistake coming off his line, and a header from Pizarro was just barely not enough to put the Bremen side ahead. And before that, the Brazilian spearhead of "Shakhtar's" attacks - Adriano - failed to convert a one-on-one opportunity. Incidentally, throughout the match Lucescu's Latin American quintet created quite a few half-chances with dangerous crosses past the goal line that for some reason no one managed to connect with.

At the end of the first half, Lewandowski struck powerfully from about 25 meters - Wiese punched it out for a corner. In the final seconds of the half, the Donetsk side failed to convert two more decent chances, but "Werder's" defenders coped with the dangerous crosses from the flanks.

The "miners" began the second half with pressure on the German team's goal. First Srna earned and took a free kick himself, then Jadson curled a free kick toward the goal, but in both cases Wiese was at his best.

In the 56th minute the Germans managed to bite back - Frings took a long-range free kick and the ball went just past the post of Pyatov's goal. In the counter-attack, Ilsinho dribbled past two opponents on the right flank and laid it off to Srna, who cut it to Adriano on the goal line, but the Brazilian couldn't react in time.

After that moment the game calmed down, the teams alternately controlled play, but did not create goal-scoring chances. Worth mentioning from the final twelve minutes are a blocked Adriano shot and a Jadson volley that the goalkeeper saved. And in the 78th minute "Werder" had a chance to decide the outcome of the match in their favor - Frings struck low and hard into the corner of the goal, Pyatov reacted and parried it, and on the follow-up the Bremen side missed from a tight angle...

For the last ten minutes or so "Shakhtar" played practically on the back foot - the celebrated Brazilian technique yielded to the opponents' superior physical endurance. The Brazilians frankly "died," and a telling moment was the taking of a free kick near "Werder's" goal when the Donetsk side passed the ball backward because no one (!) went for that set piece.

Actually, such fatigue of the "miners" can also be explained by just one substitution made by Mircea Lucescu - in the 90th minute Gladkyi appeared on the field. The Donetsk side began extra time more actively - Gladkyi's shot was blocked by defenders, and Srna's strike was saved by Wiese. The Bremen players also had their moment, but Özil couldn't get past the "Shakhtar" defender and go one-on-one with Pyatov.

In response, the Donetsk side crafted the most important attack in the history of the Donetsk club - Srna went down the right flank and laid it off into the center of the penalty area to Jadson, who managed to shoot low past the German goalkeeper - 2:1! There wasn't much time left before the celebration on the streets of Donetsk when Pyatov made another "blunder" - once again a mistake coming off his line and Pizarro's follow-up flew straight into the corner. But here our goalkeeper demonstrated his reflexes and corrected his own mistake. "Shakhtar" competently shifted into defense, although they should have scored a third. Willian noticed in time that Wiese was too far from the goal and tried to lob him "down the collar," but overshot the goal as well.

In the final minutes of the game, Tsyhonis could have rescued "Werder" after a wonderful lay-off for a shot - but the ball went wide of the post on the other side. In the end, a goal into Pyatov's net was indeed scored, but Medina Cantalejo noticed Pizarro's foul against Chyhrynskyi.

"Shakhtar" - "Werder" - 2:1 (1:1)

Goals: 1:0 - Adriano (24), 1:1 - Naldo (35), 2:1 - Jadson (98)