Skibbe ready for Advocaat rematch

• The two teams have never met in UEFA club competition but Leverkusen have played three games against Russian opponents, on each occasion meeting FC Spartak Moskva, runners-up to Zenit in the 2007 Russian Premier-Liga.

• The teams met home and away in the 2000/01 UEFA Champions League first group stage, with Leverkusen losing 2-0 in Moscow but winning 1-0 at home.

• They returned to the Luzhniki Stadium – also the venue for this season's UEFA Champions League final – in the group stage of this season's UEFA Cup, losing 2-1.

• Paul Freier's added-time goal in that game was Leverkusen's first on Russian soil.

• Overall their record against Russian sides reads won one and lost two. They have won all their home games against Russian sides and lost all their away games.

• Zenit have come up against German sides on six previous occasions in UEFA club competition, drawing two matches and losing the remaining four.

• They lost 6-2 on aggregate to 1. FC Dynamo Dresden – from the former East Germany – in the first round of the 1981/82 UEFA Cup, and were beaten 6-0 over two legs by VfB Stuttgart in the 1989/90 competition.

• More recently things have gone better. They drew 2-2 at TSV Alemannia Aachen in the 2004/05 UEFA Cup group stage, and earned a 2-2 tie at home against 1. FC Nürnberg in this season's group stage.

• Their three previous games in Germany have ended in a draw and two defeats with an aggregate score of 11-3 to their hosts.

• Hired as Leverkusen coach in October 2005, Michael Skibbe is preparing for his first match against Russian opposition. Forced to retire as a player at 22 after three cruciate ligament tears at FC Schalke 04, he moved into the Gelsenkirchen club's youth coaching ranks before taking on a similar role with BV Borussia Dortmund.

• He became Dortmund's senior trainer in 1998, becoming the youngest ever Bundesliga coach at the age of just 32. He subsequently worked for the German Football Association, and was Rudi Völler's assistant during his time as national team coach.

• He was thus up against Zenit coach Advocaat's Netherlands side when the two teams drew 1-1 at UEFA EURO 2004™. Leverkusen's Bernd Schneider also played in that game. Torsten Frings and Ruud van Nistelrooy scored the goals.

• Skibbe and Advocaat had previously crossed swords as Skibbe's Dortmund met Advocaat's Rangers FC side in the 1999/00 UEFA Cup third round. An own goal from Jürgen Kohler and a Rod Wallace strike gave the Glasgow side a 2-0 win in the home leg, but strikes from Viktor Ikpeba and Fredi Bobic levelled the scores in Germany. Dortmund won 3-1 on penalties, with current Leverkusen star Sergej Barbarez scoring the decisive final spot-kick.

• In total, Dutch coach Advocaat has been involved in ten games against German sides as a club coach with PSV Eindhoven and Rangers, winning four, drawing three and losing three. On German soil, he has won one, drawn one and lost three.

• That lone victory came in Rangers' game against Leverkusen in the 1999/00 UEFA Cup second round, with BayArena stalwart Carsten Ramelow playing in both legs. Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Jonatan Johansson put Rangers 2-0 up at the BayArena before Thomas Reichenberger pulled one back for Christoph Daum's Leverkusen.

• Johansson scored again in the second leg to put Rangers ahead with Ulf Kirsten's reply for Leverkusen failing to spark a revival as they bowed out 3-2 on aggregate.

• Advocaat will serve the final term of a three-match touchline ban for gross misconduct at the BayArena. The Zenit coach will be able to watch the game from the grandstand but he is not allowed into the dressing room, tunnel or technical area before and during the match, nor is he permitted to contact his team.

• Leverkusen boast Russian talent in the form of striker Dmitri Bulykin who joined the club last summer from FC Dinamo Moskva.

• Zenit and Getafe CF are the only two teams left in the competition never to have won a major European trophy.

• Leverkusen's Gonzalo Castro, Karim Haggui, Stefan Kiessling and Pirmin Schwegler are all within a booking of a suspension.

• Zenit welcome back Kim Dong Jin after a one-match ban but have Aleksandr Anyukov, Andrei Arshavin, Pavel Pogrebnyak, Fernando Ricksen and Radek Šírl within a booking of a suspension.

• Pogrebnyak is the UEFA Cup's joint-top scorer this season with seven goals along with FC Bayern München's Luca Toni. Leverkusen's Kiessling has registered six times.

• Leverkusen finished top of UEFA Cup Group E, and then beat Galatasaray AS and Bundesliga rivals Hamburger SV to earn their place in the quarter-finals. Zenit finished third in Group A, but beat Villarreal CF and Olympique de Marseille over two legs to earn their last-eight berth.

• The second leg will take place in St Petersburg on 10 April. The winners of the tie will face either FC Bayern München or Getafe in the semi-finals, playing the first leg away on 24 April, with the home game on 1 May.

• The winners of that tie will be the nominal away team in the UEFA Cup final at the City of Manchester Stadium on 14 May.