Shakhtar rallies past AEK Athens, wins 3-1 at Stamford Bridge

Shakhtar Donetsk were trailing AEK Athens when the 30th minute arrived and a penalty changed the complexion of the match. In the end, it finished 3-1 for the Ukrainians, with three goals coming in just 12 minutes spanning the closing stretch of the first half and the decisive phase of the second. The match, part of the league phase of the Champions League, was played at Stamford Bridge.

The script started poorly for the home side. In the 27th minute, Lovro Majer finished with his left foot from the center of the box after an assist from Stavros Pilios on a quick break, putting AEK up 1-0. The lead did not last long: three minutes later, VAR reviewed a play inside the box and awarded Shakhtar a penalty for a foul by Filipe Relvas on Alisson Santana. Pedrinho made no mistake from the spot in the 33rd minute to make it 1-1, the score at halftime.

The second half was a back-and-forth exchange of attempts without goals for a good while, until the match broke open late on. In the 79th minute, Vinicius Tobias popped up with a right-footed strike from well outside the box, in a spot even he did not expect to be, and drilled it through the middle of the goal after an assist from Alisson Santana to make it 2-1. Six minutes later, Gleiker Mendoza, who had come on from the bench, finished with his right foot into the top corner after a pass from Isaque to seal the final 3-1.

What the numbers say

Shakhtar had more of the ball and more overall buildup play, but AEK was sharper in the penalty areas, generating more clear-cut chances over the course of the match. Here is how the main stats broke down:

That gap in clear-cut chances explains why the xG calculated after the fact favors the Greek side despite the result: by our estimate, AEK generated 2.011 expected goals to Shakhtar's 1.494. It is a measure of what each team produced with its shots, not a prediction, and in this case it makes clear that the final score did not fully reflect which side created the greater threat.

In fact, our pre-match projection did not anticipate such a wide gap either: the preview gave Shakhtar a 39% chance of winning, 31% for a draw, and 30% for AEK, with expected goals of 1.26 for the home side and 1.08 for the visitors, a combined total of 2.34. The final result ended up more lopsided than that forecast suggested, though the flow of play, with AEK generating the clearer chances, was not far off from what was expected.

What it means in the standings

With this result, Shakhtar Donetsk move to 4 points in the tournament, the product of a win and a draw in two matches played, placing them 11th in the overall standings. AEK Athens, meanwhile, stay on 3 points after a win and a loss, sitting in 20th place. The gap between the two sides in the table is just 1 point, though the result of this match widens the margin considerably in each team's win and loss columns.

What the night leaves behind is a Shakhtar side that came back from behind in a match that had turned difficult and closed it out decisively in the final minutes, helped along by the substitutions made from the bench. AEK, for their part, leave with the feeling of having created more than the scoreboard ended up showing.