Shakhtar seek the Malmö route to first three points

Malmö FF took the spoils in the first battle between the teams struggling to stay in contention with the Group A heavyweights and that ensures FC Shakhtar Donetsk will be pulling out all the stops on matchday four.

• A 1-0 win, courtesy of Markus Rosenberg's early goal, ended Malmö's run of six successive defeats in the group stage. It was Shakhtar's first competitive assignment against a Swedish side and Mircea Lucescu's 100th UEFA Champions League fixture (group stage to final) as a coach.

Match background

Shakhtar
• The Ukrainian Premier League runners-up, who are in their 11th group stage campaign, lost 4-0 at Real Madrid CF and 3-0 at home to Paris Saint-Germain before their defeat in Sweden.

• The Paris reverse was only Shakhtar's fourth in their last 17 home games in the UEFA Champions League group stage. They won eight.

• They beat Fenerbahçe SK 3-0 at home in the third qualifying round to progress with the same aggregate score and in the play-offs they followed a 1-0 win at SK Rapid Wien with a 2-2 home draw.

• Shakhtar won only one of their four home games in the 2014/15 competition, beating FC BATE Borisov 5-0. They lost 1-0 to Athletic Club and drew the other two games, including a goalless first leg against FC Bayern München in the round of 16; they subsequently lost 7-0 away.

• Shakhtar's best performance in the competition came in 2010/11, when they reached the quarter-finals.

Malmö
• The Swedish champions are competing in the group stage for a second successive season, having made their debut in 2014/15.

• They lost both opening fixtures 2-0, away to Paris and at home to Madrid.

• The Himmelsblått lost 3-2 at Celtic FC in the play-offs and 2-0 at FC Salzburg in the third qualifying round, turning each tie round at home. In the second qualifying round a 1-0 second-leg win at VMFD Žalgiris was enough for them to advance after a 0-0 home draw.

• Malmö, European Cup runners-up in 1979, have finished fourth on the two previous occasions they reached a UEFA competition group stage. In last season's Group A they lost all three away games, their only points coming via a 2-0 win against Olympiacos FC in their first home game. In the 2011/12 UEFA Europa League they finished bottom after one draw and five defeats.

• In the 2011/12 UEFA Europa League group stage Malmo lost 4-1 at home to FC Metalist Kharkiv and 3-1 away. That first result matched their worst ever European home defeat, a 4-1 UEFA Cup first round second-leg loss against Beşiktaş JK on 29 September 2005.

• Malmö took on FC Dynamo Kyiv in the second round of the 1978/79 European Champion Clubs' Cup. The first leg, a 0-0 draw, was staged in Kharkiv as Dynamo's home stadium was being rebuilt to host the 1980 Olympics. Malmö won the home decider 2-0 and reached the final that season, losing 1-0 against Nottingham Forest FC.

Coach and player links
• Darijo Srna was the match winner for Croatia against Sweden in both qualifiers for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. He scored in 1-0 victories in Gothenburg on 8 September 2004 and in Zagreb on 8 October 2005, where Markus Rosenberg was part of Sweden's squad but did not play.

• Rosenberg did feature for SV Werder Bremen in the 2009 UEFA Cup final against Shakhtar, who included Andriy Pyatov, Olexandr Kucher and Srna. Shakhtar won 2–1.

• Jo Inge Berget scored the first goal in Norway's 2–0 win over Srna's Croatia in a UEFA EURO 2016 qualifier in Oslo on 6 September 2015.

Match facts

Shakhtar
• Kucher and Srna will incur a suspension with their next bookings.

• The Pitmen have won their last ten domestic fixtures.

• Shakhtar beat FC Zorya Luhansk 7-1 on Friday, their biggest away win since overwhelming FC BATE Borisov 7-0 12 months ago.

• Alex Teixeira has scored 18 Ukrainian Premier League goals in 12 outings this season, already one more than his division-leading tally of 17 last term. He has scored two goals in a match on eight occasions in 2015/16.

• Giorgi Arabidze, 17, made his league debut against Zorya.

• On 28 October, Shakhtar completed a 9-0 aggregate victory over FC Ternopil in the Ukrainian Cup round of 16 with a 4-0 second-leg win. Facundo Ferreyra opened the scoring from the spot, his first goal since 26 October 2013.

Malmö
• Rasmus Bengtsson and Rosenberg are a booking away from a ban. 

• Malmö concluded their league campaign on Saturday with a 2-0 loss to newly-crowned champions IFK Norrköping. Rosenberg was sent off after five minutes and half-time substitute Franz Brorsson was also dismissed. Malmö finished fifth.

• Åge Hareide's team lost six of their 30 Allsvenskan fixtures in 2015 – two more than they suffered last term when they won the title.

• Bengtsson's first goal for Malmö, a header, earned the Blues a 1-0 victory at Hammarby on 25 October.

• Malmö have arranged a friendly against Sweden Under-21s for 12 November.