Portugal-inspired PSG ready for Braga

Paris Saint-Germain FC have plenty of positive associations with Portugal, and the French capital's substantial Portuguese expatriate community is sure to be out in force when SC Braga visit in the UEFA Cup Round of 16.

• PSG's strongest connection to Portuguese football is Pauleta, his nation's highest goalscorer with 47 strikes in 88 international games, who played at Parc des Princes from 2003 to 2008, scoring 76 goals in 168 Ligue 1 matches.

• The 'Eagle from the Azores' scored a record 109 goals in all competitions for the club, and is now working for PSG in an advisory and ambassadorial capacity.

• Portuguese coach Artur Jorge is also remembered fondly in Paris. The former Portugal striker coached PSG to their last French title in 1993/94 and returned to the capital more recently as coach of US Créteil-Lusitanos – the club that has traditionally represented the capital's Portuguese community.

• Humberto Coelho, who led Portugal to the last four at UEFA EURO 2000™, was a PSG centre-back between 1975 and 1977 and later coached Braga in the 1986/87 season.

• Once-capped Portugal midfielder Hugo Leal was part of the PSG squad that won the French Cup in 2003/04 and later played for Braga from 2005 to 2007.

• PSG and Braga are meeting for the first time in UEFA club competition.

• PSG's record against Portuguese clubs reads P6 W3 D1 L2. All three of their home games against Liga sides have ended in victories, but they have never won an away game against a Portuguese outfit.

• Braga have never come up against French opposition before, nor has their coach Jorge Jesus.

• PSG's Paul Le Guen has been involved in four games against Portuguese sides as a coach; two with his current side and two with Olympique Lyonnais. His record in those games reads P4 W1 D1 L2. The win and the draw both came at home.

• Le Guen's Lyon lost out to José Mourinho's FC Porto in the quarter-finals of the 2003/04 UEFA Champions League. PSG's Péguy Luyindula played in both legs of that match, which Lyon lost 4-2 on aggregate, while Braga's César Peixoto was an unused substitute in both games for Porto.

• Braga's Filipe Oliveira was a team-mate of Claude Makelele and Mateja Kežman at Chelsea FC in the 2004/05 season.

• Braga's Albert Meyong and PSG's Luyindula were team-mates at Spanish side Levante UD in the 2006/07 season, while the latter was on loan from Olympique de Marseille.

• The Portuguese club's Colombian forward Renteria has French football experience, having joined RC Strasbourg on loan from Porto in the 2007/08 season. He scored nine Ligue 1 goals, including one in a 2-1 home defeat against PSG.

• PSG are unbeaten in five European games since losing 3-1 at FC Schalke 04 in the UEFA Cup group stage, with that run comprising three wins and two draws.

• On their own patch, PSG have not been bettered in seven home games since going down 4-2 against Hapoel Tel-Aviv FC in the group stage of the 2006/07 UEFA Cup. That run has included five wins and two draws.

• Braga are unbeaten in their last three UEFA Cup games. They have lost only one of their last six European away matches – 1-0 at AC Milan in the group stage – winning four and drawing one.

• As the last of the eleven sides that qualified for UEFA Cup places as winners of the 2008 UEFA Intertoto Cup, Braga have been declared the official victors of the final edition of the traditional summer competition. They will be presented with an official plaque in recognition of this achievement before the second leg of this tie.

• That decider will be PSG's 50th UEFA Cup game.

• PSG's top European marksman this season is Péguy Luyindula, whose six goals make him the joint second highest scorer in the UEFA Cup along with Hamburger SV's Ivica Olić, VfB Stuttgart's Mario Gómez and Braga's Luis Aguiar.

• Luis Aguiar has scored six times since the first round of the UEFA Cup and also struck once for his side in their UEFA Intertoto Cup win against Sivasspor, though this goal does not count towards his total for the season. His team-mate Meyong, meanwhile, is one of five players who have scored five times in this edition of the UEFA Cup.

• French League Cup holders PSG qualified for the Round of 32 as third-placed finishers in Group A. They proved to be too strong for VfL Wolfsburg in the first knockout round, winning 2-0 at home and 3-1 away.

• Braga finished third in UEFA Cup Group E, having taken seventh place in the Liga in 2007/08. They reached the Round of 16 at the expense of R. Standard de Liège, winning 3-0 in Portugal and drawing the return leg in Belgium 1-1.

• PSG's Luyindula is within a booking of a one-match ban, as are Braga's Evaldo, Renteria, César Peixoto and Vandinho.

• The draw for the quarter-finals and semi-finals takes place in Nyon on 20 March, exactly two months before the final at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium in Istanbul on 20 May.