Romania scent opportunity in Luxembourg

With the two sides directly above them – Belarus and Bosnia and Herzegovina – meeting elsewhere, Romania will look to profit by moving closer to the top spots in Group D with victory over bottom-placed Luxembourg.

• Fourth in the standings at present, Romania came from behind to beat Luxembourg 3-1 at home on 29 March. Lars Gerson put the visitors ahead midway through the first half, but Adrian Mutu struck back briskly and scored again after 68 minutes before Ianis Zicu made sure of the home win 12 minutes from time.

• Victor Piţurcă returned to take the reins from Răzvan Lucescu as Romania coach in June, having himself been replaced by Lucescu in 2009. "It is a difficult time for the national team and I am taking a risk, but I like challenges," said Piţurcă. "Even if our chances of qualifying for EURO 2012 are slender, don't think that I will only be thinking about EURO 2016. Even if it is difficult, I want to qualify for both tournaments. Even for 2012. Why not?"

• Romania's record in five games against Luxembourg reads W5 D0 L0 (W2 D0 L0 away). They had not shipped a single goal against their opponents until Gerson's strike in Piatra Neamt, and have yet to concede in Luxembourg itself.

• Luxembourg can take some comfort from the fact that their results against Romania have improved with every game since their first meeting, a 7-0 home defeat in a UEFA EURO 2004 qualifier on 16 October 2002 in which Cosmin Contra registered a hat-trick.

• They lost the return fixture 4-0 in Ploiesti on 6 September the following year.

• When the teams met again in UEFA EURO 2008 qualifying, Romania won 3-0 at home on 28 March 2007 and 2-0 in the return fixture on 17 October the same year.

• The teams have been paired together in the past three UEFA European Championship qualifying campaigns.