Bologna vs Shakhtar Donetsk Prediction: Rosy start for I Rossoblu in CL

After finishing fifth in Serie A last season Bologna are in the Champions League for the first time, and their debut in the competition arrives on Wednesday (17:45, TNT Sports 4) at home to Ukrainian giants Shakhtar Donetsk.

Read on for my Bologna vs Shakhtar Donetsk prediction and all the latest team news ahead of this league phase game at the Stadio Renato Dall'Ara.

Team News

Influential Scottish midfielder Lewis Ferguson, who scored six times in Serie A last season, has been out injured since mid-April and is still sidelined for the hosts, who are also without Nicolo Cambiaghi and Oussama El Azzouzi.

There's better news on Emil Holm, Martin Erlic and Dan N'Doye, though, after the trio returned to the squad for Saturday's 2-2 draw at Como. Swiss international N'Doye was a second-half substitute and is in contention to start on Wednesday.

Vincenzo Italiano, who replaced Thiago Motta as head coach in the summer, has a decision to make up top after 19-year-old Argentine striker Santiago Castro responded to being dropped from the starting XI by scoring his side's first goal at the Stadio Guiseppe Sinigaglia. Dutch forward Thijs Dallinga, bought for £12.6m from Toulouse in the summer, could lose his place after only making his full debut on the weekend.

On-loan Aston Villa winger Samuel Iling Jr., who was introduced as a 63rd-minute substitute alongside Castro at Como, also found the net on Saturday to stake his claim for a starting spot.

Michel Aebischer was hooked at half-time for Giovanni Fabian and must be fearing for his place ahead of Wednesday, while Colombian Jhon Lucumi will hope to regain his position at centre-back after being restricted to a substitute appearance last time out.

Football Odds

Shakhtar warmed up for the trip to Italy by beating Karpaty Lviv 5-2 in the Ukrainian Premier League on Saturday. Artem Bondarenko led the scoring with a hat-trick, while Oleksandr Zubkov and Danylo Sikan were also on target. The trio are all expected to be named in Marino Pusic's starting XI at the Stadio Renato Dall'Ara, with the likes of Lassina Traore, Yukhym Konoplya and Marlon Gomes having to settle for substitute outings.

Midfielder and captain Taras Stepanenko didn't start on the weekend but came on for the last 35-plus minutes and the 35-year-old is an option to start if Pusic plumps for more experience in the engine room.

Bologna vs Shakhtar Donetsk Odds

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Bologna are 9/10 to triumph on their Champions League bow, giving the Italians an implied win probability of 52.6%, while Shakhtar are 16/5, or a 23.8% chance, to open their European campaign with a victory.

The draw is available at 12/5, both teams to score at 4/5, and over 2.5 total goals at 10/11.

Double Chance & Both Teams to Score - Bologna or Draw & Yes @ 5/4

It's not been an ideal start to the season for Bologna who, although have only lost once - a 3-0 defeat at Napoli - are yet to win in the Italiano era. Motta was the mastermind behind their 2023/24 feats but the Brazil-born boss left for pastures new in the summer, swapping Bologna for Turin where he has taken charge of Juventus.

Italiano has endured his fair of disappointments over the last couple of years, losing in the final of the Coppa Italia and Europa Conference League with Fiorentina in 2023, and being defeated in the UECL Final again earlier this year, so a four-game winless start to life at Bologna should be nothing but a minor setback to him.

Wednesday represents a great opportunity to get up and running as Bologna boss at home to a side that certainly isn't one of the top teams in the competition. I Rossoblu have to play the likes of Liverpool (A), Aston Villa (A), Benfica (A) and Borussia Dortmund (H), so will have surely circled Shakhtar at home as a game they need to be winning.

Shakhtar by no means disgraced themselves in last year's competition, finishing third in Group H with nine points and qualifying for the Europa League play-offs. However, two of their three wins came against bottom side Royal Antwerp, the other a famous 1-0 victory over Barcelona at Hamburg.

The Ukrainians were beaten 2-1 in Barcelona and 5-3 by Porto in Portugal, only edging past Antwerp 3-2 in Belgium after the hosts missed a late penalty. They managed to score in all their away outings in the competition but ended up on the losing side in two of their games, so the double chance result on Bologna and both teams to score looks like the play on Wednesday.

This selection has landed in three of Bologna's first four games under Italiano, while there have been exactly seven goals in Shakhtar's last two completed matches - both teams scoring at least twice in both.

Bologna are unbeaten at home so far this term and only Inter (46) collected more points at home than I Rossoblu (41 - level with Atalanta) in Serie A last season; their only defeats in the competition at the Stadio Renato Dall'Ara came against the two Milan clubs.

Bet Builder - Stefan Posch (BOL) & Dmytro Kryskiv (SHA) Carded @ 10/1

My second selection is a player card double, with Bologna's Stefan Posch and Shakhtar's Dmytro Kryskiv both backed to work their way into the referee's notebook.

Posch is possibly the most obvious candidate to be booked on Wednesday, with the 27-year-old picking up seven yellows in Serie A last season and six in the previous campaign. The Austrian averaged a foul per game in the competition last season, down from 1.6 in 2022/23, but is already on 2.2 after four games this term, making two fouls against Udinese, Napoli, and Empoli before being penalised three times on Saturday. He was booked in the 3-0 defeat to Napoli on August 25 and was also cautioned once for his nation at Euro 2024, where he averaged 2.5 fouls per game.

Bologna's right-back could be in direct competition with Shakhtar's Brazilian winger Kevin on Wednesday, and the 21-year-old has been fouled an average of 0.8 times per game in the Ukrainian Premier League this season, down slightly from the one-per-game average of the 2023/24 campaign. Georgiy Sudakov is another player who drifts out to the left-hand side of the pitch and he was fouled an average of 1.8 times in the Champions League group stage last season, and 1.8 times across five domestic league matches this term.

I'm adding Kryskiv's name to the card mix, too, with the 23-year-old midfielder cautioned for the first time this season on the weekend. Kryskiv was booked five times in the league in 2023/24 and once in the Champions League group stage, while his 1.5 fouls per game average this term points at a player who could be at risk of a caution in the cauldron of a big European away contest.

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