Stuttgart look to end holders' reign

VfB Stuttgart will be out to end FC Zenit St. Petersburg's defence of their UEFA Cup title when the teams' Round of 32 tie concludes on German soil.

• Zenit lead 2-1 from the first leg, with Szabolcs Huszti and Anatoliy Tymoshchuk scoring either side of Mario Gómez's effort for 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 that match in Stuttgart were:
Stuttgart: Eike Immel, Nils Schmäler, Michael Frontzeck, Alexander Strehmel, Jürgen Hartmann, Guido Buchwald, Karl Allgöwer (Axel Jüptner, 46), Fritz Walter, José Basualdo (Gerhard Poschner, 58), Asgeir Sigurvinsson, Demir Hotić.
Zenit: Mikhail Biryukov, Sergei Podpaly, Aleksei Stepanov, Vladimir Dolgopolov, Arkadi Afanasiev, Nikolai Larionov (Yuri Zheludkov, 46), Dmitri Barannik, Vasili Ivanov, Boris Chukhlov, Dmitri Radchenko, Nikolai Vorobiev.

• Zenit have now played eleven matches against German sides, accruing a record of W3 D3 L5. Their five away games at Bundesliga opponents have ended W1 D2 L2.

• 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 now played a total of eleven competitive games against Russian teams and have a record of W6 D0 L5. At home, this is W4 D0 L1.

• Advocaat has now coached teams in 16 meetings with German opposition, spanning his time at Zenit, Rangers and PSV Eindhoven. His overall record reads W7 D5 L4, compared to W2 D2 L3 on German soil.

• 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 eventual winners Germany in their 3-0 group 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 club 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.

• Stuttgart are unbeaten in six European games at home, a run of five wins and a draw. They have scored at least twice in each of these home fixtures.

• Stuttgart's only penalty shoot-out in UEFA club competition to date came in the quarter-finals of the 1988/89 UEFA Cup. The German team beat Spanish side Real Sociedad de Fútbol 4-2 on spot-kicks after the tie ended 1-1 on aggregate.

• Zenit have never been involved in a penalty shoot-out in UEFA club competition.

• 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.

• Mario Gómez is Stuttgart's top scorer in Europe this season with six goals. Zenit's top marksman is Danny with two.

• Stuttgart's Roberto Hilbert, Martin Lanig, Ludovic Magnin and Ciprian Marica are all within a booking of one-match bans.

• Zenit's Radek Šírl and Tymoshchuk are both suspended for this game after receiving their third European bookings of the season last week.

• 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.