Stuttgart provide first test of Zenit defence

Having missed out on a place in the UEFA Champions League first knockout round, FC Zenit St. Petersburg can now focus on winning a second successive UEFA Cup. Their campaign kicks off with a Round of 32 tie against VfB Stuttgart.

• The two sides met in the second round of the 1989/90 UEFA Cup, though it was a less-than-memorable experience for followers of the team then known as Zenit Leningrad. Coach Vladimir Golubev's charges lost the home leg 1-0 after conceding a late winner from Karl Allgöwer, before coming totally unstuck on German soil. Fritz Walter, Asgeir Sigurvinsson (2), Allgöwer and Guido Buchwald all scored for Arie Haan's Stuttgart in a 5-0 second-leg success.

• The lineups for the first leg in Russia were:
Zenit: Mikhail Biryukov, Sergei Podpaly, Aleksei Stepanov, Vasili Ivanov, Arkadi Afanasiev, Nikolai Larionov, Dmitri Barannik, Yuri Zheludkov (Vladimir Dolgopolov, 59), Boris Chukhlov, Dmitri Radchenko, Nikolai Vorobiev.
Stuttgart: Eike Immel, Günther Schäfer, Michael Frontzeck, Alexander Strehmel, Jürgen Hartmann, Guido Buchwald, Karl Allgöwer, Fritz Walter, José Basualdo, Asgeir Sigurvinsson, Demir Hotić.

• Zenit have played ten games against German sides, accruing a record of W2 D3 L5. Their five home meetings with Bundesliga opponents have ended W1 D1 L3.

• Prior to the 2007/08 season, Zenit had never beaten a German club in European competition. Under Dutch coach Dick Advocaat, however, the Russian outfit defeated both Bayer 04 Leverkusen and FC Bayern München en route to a UEFA Cup final victory over Rangers FC in Manchester.

• Zenit played five games against Bundesliga clubs in their triumphant UEFA Cup campaign. The first of these was a 2-2 home draw with Group A rivals 1. FC Nürnberg ahead of a 4-1 away win and 1-0 home defeat against Leverkusen in the quarter-finals. In the last four they followed up a 1-1 draw at Bayern by winning the return leg 4-0 at the Petrovsky Stadium.

• Stuttgart have played a total of ten competitive games against Russian teams and have a record of W6 D0 L4. On Russian soil their record is W2 D0 L3.

• Advocaat has coached teams in 15 meetings with German opposition, spanning his time at Zenit, Rangers FC and PSV Eindhoven. His overall record reads W6 D5 L4, compared to W4 D3 L1 at home.

• The Dutch coach may remember Stuttgart's Jens Lehmann from a 1999/00 UEFA Cup third-round tie in which his Rangers' charges took on the goalkeeper's BV Borussia Dortmund. The two teams traded 2-0 wins before Dortmund prevailed 3-1 on penalties at the Westfalenstadion.

• Lehmann was also an unused substitute for Germany in a 1-1 group-stage draw with Advocaat's Netherlands at UEFA EURO 2004™.

• Markus Babbel, appointed team manager after Stuttgart parted company with head coach Armin Veh in November, started for Germany in their 3-0 pool victory over Russia at EURO '96™. He was also an unused substitute in Liverpool FC's 3-1 group-stage win at FC Spartak Moskva in the 2002/03 UEFA Champions League.

• The defender played his only competitive tie against Russian opposition in the first round of the 1995/96 UEFA Cup, during his time at Bayern. The Bavarian outfit, who went on to claim the trophy, lost 1-0 at home in the first leg of their tie with FC Lokomotiv Moskva only to win 5-0 in the return in the Russian capital.

• Mario Gómez is Stuttgart's top scorer in Europe this season. Gomez has hit five goals since the first round of the UEFA Cup, on top of two further goals scored in the qualifying rounds. Ciprian Marica, for his part, has scored twice since the first round in addition to three goals in qualifying and UEFA Intertoto Cup action.

• Portuguese attacker Danny, scorer of two goals in Group H this season, was the only Zenit player to register more than once in the club's maiden UEFA Champions League group-stage campaign.

• Zenit have gone three European home games without a win since their 4-0 victory over Bayern in last season's UEFA Cup semi-final.

• Stuttgart are unbeaten in their last nine European games since a 1-0 reverse at Zenit's Russian rivals FC Saturn Moskovskaya Oblast in the third round of this summer's UEFA Intertoto Cup. They have not lost in seven UEFA Cup away games since going down 1-0 at NK Domžale in the first round of the 2005/06 competition.

• Stuttgart are just two goals shy of their 200th UEFA Cup strike.

• Of the eleven clubs that progressed to the UEFA Cup from the UEFA Intertoto Cup this season, four are still in the competition: Stuttgart, Aston Villa FC, SC Braga and RC Deportivo La Coruña. UEFA traditionally awards a plaque to the Intertoto side that lasts the longest in the UEFA Cup.

• Zenit are one of six sides in the UEFA Cup who qualified for Europe this season as domestic champions. The others are R. Standard de Liège (Belgium), Olympiacos CFP (Greece), Aalborg BK (Denmark), FC Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine) and Galatasaray AŞ (Turkey).

• Zenit finished third in UEFA Champions League Group H to qualify for the UEFA Cup Round of 32. Five-time German champions Stuttgart came sixth in the Bundesliga in 2007/08, having won the title the previous season. They qualified for the Round of 32 after taking second spot in UEFA Cup Group C.

• Zenit's Radek Šírl and Anatoliy Tymoschuk will be suspended for the second leg if they are booked, as will Stuttgart's Roberto Hilbert and Ciprian Marica.

• January squad changes:-
Zenit
Players added to squad list:Igor Semshov, Szabolcs Huszti.
Players removed from squad list:Sébastian Puygrenier, Lee Ho, Olexandr Gorshkov, Vladislav Radimov.
Stuttgart
Players added to squad list: Timo Gebhart, Georg Niedermeier, Patrick Funk, Daniel Didavi.
Players removed from squad list: Pável Pardo, Sven Schipplock, Manuel Fischer.

• The winners of this tie will meet KKS Lech Poznań or Udinese Calcio in the Round of 16 on 12 and 18/19 March, playing the second leg at home.