UEFA Cup place at stake in Kiev

FC Dynamo Kyiv will welcome Fenerbahçe SK to the Valeri Lobanovskiy Stadium on Matchday 6 for a concluding fixture between Group G's bottom two teams that serves as a play-off for the UEFA Cup.

• Third-placed Dynamo hold a three-point lead over their Turkish visitors and will secure entry into the UEFA Cup Round of 32 so long as they avoid defeat. Fenerbahçe are not without hope, however, for they know a victory in Kiev will take them above their opponents on the head-to-head rule.

• Both sides saw their fading prospects of UEFA Champions League progress vanish altogether on Matchday 5, Dynamo after going down to a 1-0 defeat at Arsenal FC and Fenerbahçe following their 2-1 home loss to FC Porto.

• It appears hard for either team to approach this contest with any great conviction given the remarkable statistic that Dynamo have not won at home in the UEFA Champions League, nor Fenerbahçe triumphed on their travels in the competition, since the same date more than four years ago.

• The Dynamo faithful have not witnessed their side win at home in the UEFA Champions League proper since a 2-0 success against AS Roma on 23 November 2004, courtesy of a Traianos Dellas own goal and a Maksim Shatskikh strike. In the intervening period, eight fixtures in the Ukrainian capital have produced six defeats and two draws.

• Fenerbahçe have faced an identical wait since Radoslav Kováč's own goal gave them a 1-0 victory at AC Sparta Praha on the same winter's night in 2004. Their ten away trips since have yielded seven defeats and three draws.

• Whatever the outcome, supporters at the game would be advised not to leave before the final whistle given Dynamo's unhappy habit of leaking late goals. Yuri Semin's side lost an 88th-minute equaliser to Arsenal's William Gallas in their Group G opener, then conceded a 92nd-minute winner to Porto's Lucho on Matchday 4. If that was not enough, they were three minutes away from a goalless draw at Arsenal last time out when Nicklas Bendtner struck.

• Dynamo ended Fenerbahçe's long winning streak at their Sükrü Saraçoglu Stadium when the sides played out a 0-0 draw on 30 September. The Turkish outfit had previously recorded eight successive home victories in the UEFA Champions League, qualifiers included.

• The Ukrainian giants came out on top when the teams met for the first time in the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round in 2006/07. Goals from Diogo Rincón (1, 67) and Ayila Yussuf (83) earned Dynamo a 3-1 first-leg win in Kiev, where Mehmet Aurélio (48) found the net for a visiting team reduced to ten men by Serkan Balcı's 75th-minute dismissal.

• The full lineups for that match on 9 August 2006 were:
Dynamo: Olexandr Shovkovskiy, Marjan Marković, Goran Sabljić, Rodrigo, Badr El Kaddouri, Ayila Yussuf, Carlos Corrêa, Oleh Gusev (Valentin Belkevich), Diogo Rincón, Serhiy Rebrov (Artem Milevskiy), Maksim Shatskikh.
Fenerbahçe: Rüştü Reçber, Serkan Balcı, Önder Turacı, Can Arat (Servet Çetin), Ümit Özat, Mehmet Aurélio, Stephen Appiah, Tümer Metin (Uğur Boral), Alex, Nicolas Anelka (Semih Şentürk), Tuncay Şanlı.

• Dynamo then led twice in the return leg on 26 August, Shatskikh scoring twice (5, 42), and although Stephen Appiah (36) and Kerim Zengin (57) drew the hosts level both times, the 2-2 draw on the night confirmed Fenerbahçe's elimination.

• While that was Fenerbahçe's only past meeting with Ukrainian opposition, Dynamo have considerable experience of facing teams from Turkey. They have a decent record too with seven wins, three draws and two defeats.

• Quarter-finalists last season but winless so far in Group G, Fenerbahçe have gone through a group stage without a single victory only once in five previous campaigns – in 2001/02 when they finished without a point.

• Fenerbahçe coach Luis Aragonés has had mixed fortunes against Ukrainian sides in the past. His Club Atlético de Madrid team went down 3-0 to Dynamo in the 1985/86 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final but he did oversee a 4-0 triumph for Spain against Ukraine at the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The opposition team that day included the Dynamo trio of Olexandr Shovkovskiy, Andriy Nesmachniy and Oleh Gusev.

• The draw for the UEFA Cup Round of 32 and Round of 16 will be held at UEFA Headquarters in Nyon on Friday 19 December at 13.00CET. Group winners will be paired with third-placed sides from other UEFA Cup sections, while second-placed finishers will be drawn against one of the eight clubs who finished third in the UEFA Champions League groups. The UEFA Cup group winners and runners-up will play the second leg at home. Teams from the same association cannot be drawn against each other.