Munteanu seeks second slice of beginner's luck

Dorinel Munteanu will hope to recapture a moment from his youth when his FC Oţelul Galaţi side welcome Group C rivals SL Benfica to their home from home at Bucharest's new National Arena.

• As a 23-year-old FC Dinamo Bucureşti midfielder Munteanu, in his first taste of UEFA club competition, helped his team get the better of Benfica's city rivals Sporting Clube de Portugal in the 1991/92 UEFA Cup first round.

• The Oţelul coach will hope for something similar as he welcomes Jorge Jesus' Benfica for what will be the first UEFA Champions League match played at the rebuilt National Arena.

• The Romanian champions are looking to bounce back from their 2-1 defeat at FC Basel 1893 on matchday one, when Benfica earned a 1-1 draw against Manchester United FC in Lisbon.

Match background
• Overlooking UEFA Intertoto Cup and UEFA Cup qualifying matches, this is Oţelul's first home fixture in a UEFA competition proper since they took on Juventus in the 1988/89 UEFA Cup first round. They shocked the Bianconeri with a 1-0 victory, though the celebrations were cut short by a 5-0 second-leg reverse in Turin.

• While Oţelul played that, their only previous home match in UEFA competition, in Galati in eastern Romania, they will stage their UEFA Champions League home fixtures in Bucharest.

• Benfica have an impressive record in the Romanian capital where they are unbeaten in four previous visits. They drew with FC Steaua Bucureşti at the Ghencea Stadium in the 1987/88 European Champion Clubs' Cup semi-finals and again in the 1994/95 UEFA Champions League group stage. The Lisbon club then faced Dinamo Bucureşti twice and won both times – 2-0 in the 1999/2000 UEFA Cup first round, and 2-1 in the last 32 of the same competition in 2006/07.

• Captain Luisão is the squad's only survivor from that most recent trip to Romania.

• In last season's UEFA Champions League group stage Benfica lost all three away games without scoring a single goal. They recorded a win, two draws and a defeat in the four away matches that followed on their path to the UEFA Europa League semi-finals, and this season secured creditable draws at Trabzonspor AŞ and FC Twente in the UEFA Champions League qualifying rounds.

Team ties
• Munteanu's first outing in UEFA club competition was that aforementioned 1991/92 UEFA Cup tie against Sporting. He played every minute of the 1-0 defeat in Lisbon and subsequent 2-0 second-leg triumph after extra time in Bucharest.

• Munteanu scored the only goal for Romania when they beat Portugal 1-0 in Lisbon in UEFA EURO 2000 qualifying in October 1998. He played in the 1-1 return draw too but suffered a less happy outcome against the Portuguese in the finals themselves, as Romania went down 1-0 in a group stage encounter.

• Benfica's Óscar Cardozo came off the bench to score an 81st-minute winner for Paraguay against a Peru side who sent on Oţelul forward Daniel Chávez 60 seconds after his goal in a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier in Asuncion in October 2008. Chávez was an unused substitute when Luisão's Brazil beat Peru 3-0 in Porto Alegre in April 2009.

• Luisão and Cardozo both played in friendly matches against Romania in June, helping their respective Brazil and Paraguay sides to 1-0 and 2-0 wins.