Levy gets another crack at Liverpool

Romanian champions FC Unirea Urziceni are something of an unknown quantity for Liverpool FC, their opponents in the UEFA Europa League round of 32, but their new coach Roni Levy has crossed swords with the Reds before.

Previous meetings
• While Unirea have never faced English opposition, this will be the tenth time Liverpool have met a Romanian team. Ominously for the visitors, Liverpool have lost just one of their nine games against sides from Romania in UEFA's club competitions – a 3-1 defeat at FC Petrolul Ploiesti in the 1966/67 European Champion Clubs' Cup first round. Their overall record reads W6 D2 L1 (W3 D1 L0 at home with no goals conceded).

Match background
• Liverpool won the UEFA Cup three times but last appeared in the competition in the 2003/04 season, losing to Olympique de Marseille in the fourth round.

• Liverpool have lost three of their last four European home games, with a 1-0 home win against Debreceni VSC breaking up a run of defeats by Chelsea FC, Olympique Lyonnais and ACF Fiorentina.

• In only their second European campaign, Unirea have made it to the spring stages of a UEFA club competition for the first time.

• They have won only one of their four European away fixtures to date, a 4-1 triumph at Rangers FC in the UEFA Champions League group stage. Their three other outings have yielded a draw and two defeats.

Team facts
• This is the only last-32 tie which involves two sides eliminated from this season's UEFA Champions League group stage as third-placed finishers.

• Dan Petrescu stepped down as coach of Unirea during the winter break to take up a new post in Russia with FC Kuban Krasnodar. Israeli coach Levy was named as his replacement and this will be his first game in charge.

• Levy has been to Anfield before with his former club Maccabi Haifa FC. They travelled to Liverpool for a 2006/07 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round first leg, taking the lead but succumbing 2-1 with Mark González scoring the 87th-minute winner. A 1-1 draw in the second leg, played on neutral territory in Kyiv, meant Liverpool edged through 3-2 on aggregate.

• Of the current Liverpool squad, Pepe Reina, Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Fábio Aurélio and Daniel Agger played in the course of that tie.

• Levy and Rafael Benítez also met when Haifa took on Valencia CF in the 2003/04 UEFA Cup second round. The Israeli side earned a useful 0-0 draw at Mestalla but came unstuck in another second leg played at a neutral venue, going down 4-0 at De Kuip in Rotterdam.

• Levy and Liverpool's Israel midfielder Yossi Benayoun are also reasonably well acquainted. Levy was coach of Maccabi Haifa's youth sides during Benayoun's time as a player at the club, and he took command of the first team in a caretaker role in 2000.

• Levy coached Benayoun as Maccabi lost the Israeli State Cup semi-final 2-1 on penalties to Hapoel Tel-Aviv FC, with Benayoun missing his side's fourth spot-kick. The midfielder had left for Real Racing Club by the time Levy took the job on a permanent basis in 2003.

• With Petrescu having taken his backroom staff with him to Kuban, Levy will be assisted by Gabriel Caramarin and Eugen Nae, both of whom have recently retired from professional football.

• The tie concludes in Bucharest on 25 February with the winners to face the victors of the tie between LOSC Lille Métropole and Fenerbahçe SK in the round of 16 on 11 and 18 March, playing the second leg at home.

Liverpool
Suspended: none
Misses next match if booked: none
Players added to squad: Nabil El Zhar, Philipp Degen, Stephen Darby, Steven Irwin, Alexander Kacaniklic, Robert Threlfall
Players removed from squad: Andrea Dossena, Andriy Voronin

Unirea
Suspended: none
Misses next match if booked: Iulian Apostol, Marius Ioan Bilasco, Pablo Brandán, George Galamaz, Ricardo Vilana
Players added to squad: Daniel Munteanu, Laurentiu Marinescu
Players removed from squad: Tiberiu Bălan, Dacian Şerban Varga