BATE and Sturm pushing for group stage return

FC BATE Borisov will look to secure a second UEFA Champions League group stage campaign against an SK Sturm Graz side who have had their moments in Europe's top club competition.

Previous meetings
• The teams have never met in UEFA competition and BATE have never played against an Austrian side.

• Sturm, under current coach Franco Foda, met FC Shakhtyor Soligorsk in the second round of the 2008 UEFA Intertoto Cup, winning 2-0 at home and drawing 0-0 away. Defender Ferdinand Feldhofer, still a Sturm player, scored the opening goal of the tie, while Andreas Hölzl and Sandro Foda also featured.

• That was one of only two UEFA club ties to have pitted sides from Austria and Belarus together; in the other, FC Dinamo Minsk beat FK Austria Wien home and away in the 1995/96 UEFA Cup first round.

Match background
• BATE are unbeaten in six European games (two wins and four draws) since losing 3-0 at AZ Alkmaar in their final 2010/11 UEFA Europa League group-stage encounter.

• Viktor Goncharenko's BATE have lost only once at home in their last nine European matches, FC Dynamo Kyiv beating them 4-1 in Minsk in last season's UEFA Europa League group stage.

• BATE have gone five games without defeat at their own Gorodskoi Stadium, but tend to play higher-profile fixtures in the capital's Dinamo Stadium.

• Sturm have gone seven games without an away win (three draws, four defeats) since a 1-0 success at FC Metalist Kharkiv in the 2009/10 UEFA Europa League play-offs on 27 August 2009.

• Sturm have won four of their last five continental home matches, a 2-1 loss to Juventus in last season's UEFA Europa League play-offs the only blemish.

• BATE have drawn their last three European away games.

• Belarusian champions for the fifth successive season, BATE are eyeing a return to the group stage after making their only previous appearance in 2008/09.

• BATE booked their place in the play-offs courtesy of aggregate victories against Linfield FC (3-0) and FK Ekranas (3-1), 12 months after losing out in the third qualifying round to FC København.

• That defeat pushed BATE into the UEFA Europa League play-offs, where they accounted for CS Marítimo 5-1 over the two legs. Though they then finished as runners-up in Group E, their campaign ended with an away-goals defeat (2-2) by Paris Saint-Germain FC in the round of 32.

• Sturm have not played in the UEFA Champions League group stage since their three successive campaigns from 1998/99 to 2000/01.

• They were bottom of their group in the first of those seasons, and finished third in 1999/2000, but their 2000/01 performance under Ivica Osim was more successful; they finished top of their section with ten points to reach the second group stage, where they bowed out as the third-placed side behind Valencia CF and Manchester United FC.

• All three of their group appearances followed successes in qualifying; indeed up until their 2002/03 third qualifying round exit against Maccabi Haifa FC, they had not lost in four UEFA Champions League qualifying ties.

• Victories against Videoton FC (agg: 4-3) and FC Zestafoni (agg: 2-1) in this season's competition mean Sturm have lost only once in seven qualifying ties in Europe's top club competition.

Team ties
• Yegor Filipenko, Pavel Nekhaychik and Maksim Skavysh played against Haris Bukva in Belarus' 2-1 victory against Austria in a 2009 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifier, Filipenko scoring the winning goal.