When everyone in the world expected a two-men race for this year's UEFA Champions League scoring title between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, an unsung hero took both superstars by surprise to write his name with golden lettering: Luiz Adriano. The Brazilian striker playing for Shakhtar Donetsk currently leads all scorers with nine goals, and he will try to pull the biggest stunner of them all when he leads the Miners against one of the best goalkeepers in the business; no other than Ballon D'Or nominee Manuel Neuer.
While the Brazilian striker has not played an official match with the orange and black outfit, his goalscoring antics have made quite an impression all around the world. With only four goals scored in the Ukranian top flight, the 27-year old striker managed to equalize two of the most coveted scoring records in the UEFA Champions League this season: scoring five goals in one game (a record he shares with none other than Lionel Messi) and netting the ball nine times in a Champions League group stage(milestone shared with Cristiano Ronaldo). Also, he became the first player in the tournament's history to record back-to-back hat-tricks. After putting together such an interesting performance, the Amazonian will now take the challenge of beating one of the proverbial candidates to take the trophy home.
Luiz Adriano's tally this season
"I think this Champions League season has been very important for me, because I've shown everyone I'm fit to play at this level. Scoring one goal in this tournament is very exciting, and for me it's just like heaven. This will be a tough battle for us, since they are still in a different rhythm of the game. Bayern play matches every three to four days, whereas we played several friendly matches during a month-and-half. I think we can come fully prepared to face Bayern," Luiz Adriano stated.
If the Ukrainian side wants to progress in this tournament, he will have to remember his goalscoring form against Manuel Neuer, who has pulled massive numbers this season with the German champions. In 21 games with the Bavarian side, Neuer has only conceded a whopping nine goals, but five of those came in the first two games of 2015. His totals with the team in this year's UEFA Champions League season are equally overwhelming, letting only four goals into his net, three of them coming against Manchester City. Neuer has kept a clean sheet in four of his six Champions League matches, and he seems to struggle when his side plays away from Allianz Arena, conceding all four goals away from his home turf.
Neuer's numbers this year (via Transfermarkt.com)
About taking on the Ukrainian team, this year's Ballon D'Or runner up admitted they would face a rather unknown team, but will not underestimate them after going through the group stage in three of the last five Champions League editions.
"I'm definitely confident we can make the quarter-finals. Donetsk are the great unknowns in the last 16 so preparing for the matches won't be that easy. I've never personally faced this team, although I played in Lviv once with Germany when we beat Portugal 1-0 at Euro 2012, so that's a good omen," the shot-stopper said.
Both players will be key to their team's chances of progressing into the quarter-final stage of the tournament. If Guardiola's crew want to keep good hopes of making it to the next round, they will have to overcome all stats, since they have only managed to win one game out of five visits to Ukrainian soil, adding three losses and one draw to those numbers.
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