Monaco is looking to return to Champions League after 2 years and they are heavy favourites to start off with a win in the first leg against Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday.
In the previous round, Kovac’s men defeated Czech giants Sparta Prague with relative ease, won both legs 2-0 and 3-1, respectively.
This is only the 5th time that the Ligue 1 outfit has to play through qualifiers to reach the group stage. They failed only once, that was in 2015/16 against Valencia after winning the first leg.
On the weekend, Monaco lost 0-1 to Lorient, leaving them without a win in Ligue 1 after 2 matchdays. Truth to be told, Kovac’s men controlled the game and created several chances. But failed to find the back of the goal while they got punished by the lone meaningful chance created by their opposition.
There is some regrouping to do ahead of this fixture, with Shakhtar being a side capable of dealing with higher ranked teams in the continent.
Shakhtar Donetsk are far more regular at the Champions League group stage and they are looking for a 5th consecutive appearance.
They do not have to play through qualifiers, last time they did was in 2016 and got eliminated by Young Boys. However, they had qualified 6 times out of 8 qualifying campaigns.




译文(自动翻译仅供参考):

摩纳哥希望在两年之后重返欧冠，他们很有希望在周二的首回合战胜顿涅茨克矿工。
在上一轮比赛中，科瓦奇的男足相对轻松地击败了捷克巨人布拉格斯巴达，两回合比赛分别以2-0和3-1获胜。
这是法甲第五次需要通过预选赛才能进入小组赛。他们只输过一次，那是在2015 - 16赛季第一回合战胜瓦伦西亚后。
上周末，摩纳哥0:1负于洛里昂，使得他们在法甲两比赛日后一场未胜。说实话，科瓦奇的队员控制了比赛，创造了几个机会。但他们没能找到球门后面，他们被对手创造的唯一有意义的机会惩罚了。
在这场比赛之前有一些重组要做，矿工队是一支有能力对付欧洲大陆排名更高的球队的球队。
顿涅茨克矿工队在欧冠小组赛中表现更加稳定，他们正在寻找连续第五次出场的机会。
他们不需要通过预选赛，上次他们这样做是在2016年，被少年队淘汰。然而，他们在8场预选赛中有6次晋级。