Ventspils aim for third time lucky

FK Ventspils are hoping to make it third time lucky when they take on Swiss titleholders FC Zürich in the UEFA Champions League play-off round.

• Losers in the second qualifying round in 2007/08 and 2008/09, the Latvian champions have never been closer to gaining a place in the UEFA Champions League proper yet they will face a tough assignment against a visiting Zürich side eager to return to Europe's elite club competition after an absence of 28 years.

• While Zurich have never before faced a team from Latvia, Ventspils emerged 3-1 aggregate winners against FC Lugano in their one previous two-legged contest against Swiss opposition in a 2002/03 UEFA Cup qualifying tie.

• Forwards Vits Rimkus and Andrejs Butriks are the only two players now at the club who contested the 3-0 win against Lugano in the first leg in Latvia on 15 August 2002. Rimkus scored his side's second goal of that game, his strike sandwiched between a pair of goals from Evgeni Landyrev. Ventspils lost the return leg 1-0 in Switzerland two weeks later.

Match background

• Bernard Challandes' Zürich should travel to Latvia in good heart after the 3-0 win at NK Maribor that took them into the play-off round.

• The Swiss champions had lost their first-leg meeting with Maribor 3-2 on home soil but bounced back with three unanswered goals in Slovenia, courtesy of Dušan Djurić, Xavier Margairaz and Adrian Nikci.

• Zürich were semi-finalists in the European Champion Clubs' Cup in 1963/64 and 1976/77 but their last appearance in the competition came in 1981/82 – long before the UEFA Champions League era began.

• The Swiss club fell in the qualifying rounds in 2006/07 and 2007/08.

• Ventspils reached the play-off round after ousting Belarussian champions FC BATE Borisov – group-stage participants last season – on away goals following a 2-2 aggregate draw.

• The Latvian side have won both their home games in this season's competition – beating BATE 1-0 and before that Luxembourg's F91 Dudelange 3-0 en route to a 6-1 aggregate triumph in the second qualifying round.

Team ties

• Ventspils players Vitālijs Astafjevs, Deniss Kačanovs, Aleksejs Višņakovs and Igors Savčenkovs featured in the Latvia side beaten 2-1 by Switzerland in St Gallen in a FIFA World Cup qualifying tie last October. Butriks was an unused substitute.

• Astafjevs and Rimkus were in the Latvia team that lost 1-0 to the Swiss in an earlier international meeting between the countries in April 1997.