Partizan plotting Toulouse scalp

FK Partizan will look to make a bright start as they welcome Toulouse FC in their opening UEFA Europa League Group J game, with the visiting coach used to disappointment against Serbian opposition.

Previous meetings

• Partizan have played four home games against French sides but have not won since beating FC Nantes in the first of them, winning 2-0 in a 1965/66 European Champion Clubs' Cup preliminary round tie. Toulouse are making their first competitive trip to Serbia.

Match background

• Partizan played in three UEFA Cup group stages, reaching the last 16 in 2004/05 but failing to advance in 2006/07 and 2008/09. Toulouse missed the cut in their only UEFA Cup group-stage campaign, finishing bottom of their section in 2007/08.

• Partizan recorded their biggest home win in UEFA competition this season, beating Rhyl FC 8-0 in the UEFA Champions League second qualifying round.

• The Serbian champions have not won a group-stage match at home since a 4-0 trouncing of Egaleo FC in the 2004/05 UEFA Cup. Their subsequent five home ties have produced two draws and three successive defeats, including a 4-1 loss to Ligue 1 outfit AJ Auxerre on 29 November 2006.

• A 3-1 win at Trabzonspor in the UEFA Europa League play-offs ended a run of five European away games without a win for Toulouse. Their most recent victory before that came nearly 22 years previously, when they triumphed 1-0 at Panionios GSS in the first round of the UEFA Cup first in September 1987.

Team facts

• Partizan recently dismissed former Yugoslavia midfielder Slaviša Jokanović as their coach, with the former CD Tenerife, RC Deportivo La Coruña and Chelsea FC player being temporarily replaced by his assistant Goran Stevanović.

• Jokanović became the first man to lead Partizan to two successive Serbian doubles last season, but refused the Football Association of Serbia's Coach of the Year award for the first of them due to his side's disappointing 2008/09 UEFA Cup group-stage campaign.

• Toulouse coach Alain Casanova was an unused substitute as Olympique de Marseille lost 5-3 on penalties to Partizan's local rivals FK Crvena Zvezda in the 1990/91 European Champion Clubs' Cup final in Bari.

• A former goalkeeper, Casanova played for Le Havre AC and Toulouse either side of a two-season spell at Marseille in which he did not make a single competitive appearance. He replaced Elie Baup as Toulouse coach in May 2008.

• Casanova celebrates his 48th birthday the day after the Partizan game.

• Club Brugge KV visit Toulouse on Matchday 2, while FC Shakhtar Donetsk are at home against Partizan on the same night, 1 October.