Braga regroup for Shakhtar visit

SC Braga showed impressive home form in the UEFA Champions League qualifying rounds and as their Portuguese campaign begins with the visit of FC Shakhtar Donetsk on Matchday 2, they will be looking to maintain their winning run at the Estádio Municipal.

• The home side will have to regroup quickly having lost 6-0 at Arsenal FC on Matchday 1 – equalling their heaviest defeat in UEFA competition – while Shakhtar come into this match on the back of a 1-0 home win against FK Partizan.

Previous meetings
• While Braga have never before crossed paths with a team from Ukraine, Shakhtar – who are in their sixth UEFA Champions League participation and aiming to advance from the group stage for the first time – have won two of their four games in Portugal.

• The Ukrainian champions were 1-0 winners at SL Benfica in the 2007/08 UEFA Champions League and recorded a 3-2 victory at Boavista FC in the 1997/98 UEFA Cup Winners' first round first leg. However they are their only victories in eight games, home and away, with four defeats.

• Shakhtar were last in the country in the 2008/09 UEFA Champions League when they went down 1-0 to Sporting Clube de Portugal in a group stage fixture.

Match background
• The Portuguese side, who finished second in the 2009/10 Liga – their best ever position – ousted Celtic FC in the third qualifying round, a 3-0 first-leg win at home taking them through despite a 2-1 reverse in Glasgow. Sevilla FC were then overcome in the play-offs, Braga winning 1-0 at home and 4-3 in Spain to seal a place in the group stage for the first time.

• In the 2008/09 UEFA Champions League group stage, Shakhtar won 2-1 at FC Basel 1893 and 3-2 away to eventual winners FC Barcelona in addition to that defeat at Sporting. They finished third in the group.

•  Transferring to the UEFA Cup they embarked on a run which took them all the way to the Istanbul final where they lifted their first European title with a 2-1 win against SV Werder Bremen. Before that they had drawn away games against Tottenham Hotspur FC and FC Dynamo Kyiv, both 1-1, won 2-1 in France against Olympique de Marseille and lost 1-0 at PFC CSKA Moskva.

Team ties
• Alex Teixeira and Elton were team-mates in 2009/10 with CR Vasco da Gama.

• Luiz Adriano played alongside Mossoró for SC Internacional during 2006/07.

• Marcelo Moreno was part of the EC Vitória squad in 2005/06 along with Felipe and then, following his transfer to Cruzeiro EC in 2007, he linked up with Léo Fortunato for two seasons.

• Hugo Viana was an unused substitute for Valencia CF in a 2-0 win against Shakhtar in the 2006/07 UEFA Champions League group stage. Two weeks later in Donetsk he came off the bench and helped his team to a 2-2 draw.

• Shakhtar coach Mircea Lucescu was in charge of Romania when they lost 1-0 to Portugal in a UEFA European Championship Group B fixture in Nantes on 20 June 1984. In January 1985, Romania turned the tables with a 3-2 friendly win in Lisbon.

• Former Portuguese international defender Fernando Couto, the director of football at Braga, played in two 1998 FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Ukraine, scoring the only goal in Portugal's 1-0 win at Estádio das Antas on 9 November 1996.