Porto approach rickety Rapid fortress

SK Rapid Wien need to improve their poor home record in UEFA club competition group stage games if they are to push for a place in the UEFA Europa League knockout phase, with Group L winners FC Porto up next.

• Rapid need a better result against Porto than Beşiktaş JK can get at PFC CSKA Sofia to keep their hopes of progressing alive. Porto are already through.

Previous meetings
• Rolando, Falcao and Rúben Micael scored the goals as Porto beat Rapid 3-0 in their first-ever meeting in Portugal on Matchday 1.

• Rapid's seven games against Portuguese sides have ended W1 D2 L4 (W1 D2 L0 at home). They have never scored in Portugal, but let in their only goal against Portuguese opponents in Austria nearly 50 years ago, in a 1-1 European Champion Clubs' Cup semi-final tie against SL Benfica on 4 May 1961.

• Prior to Matchday 1, a two-legged 2002/03 UEFA Cup second round tie against Rapid's neighbours FK Austria Wien represented the sum total of Porto's experience of Austrian opposition. They won 1-0 in Vienna and 2-0 at home.

Match background
• This is Porto's first season in this competition since José Mourinho's Dragons won the 2002/03 UEFA Cup, beating Celtic FC 3-2 in the final in Seville.

• Rapid have not won in their last three home games – their only Group L win to date came at PFC CSKA Sofia – and lost both of their Viennese ties in this section 2-1.

• The Austrian side have won only once in 11 home ties in UEFA club competition group stage games (six in the UEFA Champions League, five in the UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League), beating Hamburger SV 3-0 in last season's UEFA Europa League. Their overall record in those games is W1 D3 L7.

• Porto are unbeaten in six games this season, though a 1-1 draw at home against Beşiktaş on Matchday 4 ended a run of five straight victories; three of them away, in which they conceded just once and scored seven times.

Team facts
• Porto won more corners than any other side in the first four matchdays, 40 in total.

• Porto have had three players sent off in the first four matchdays, more than any other side in the group stage. All of those dismissals came in their last two fixtures.

• Rapid coach since 2006, Peter Pacult played for all three of the big Vienna sides – Wiener SC, Rapid and Austria Wien – as a striker. He won two league titles with FC Tirol Innsbruck, as well as earning 24 Austria caps. A losing UEFA Cup Winners' Cup finalist with Rapid in 1984/85, he later coached TSV 1860 München, FC Kärnten and 1. FC Dynamo Dresden, before claiming the Austrian title with Rapid in 2007/08.

• Porto's new coach André Villas-Boas started his career as a teenager in the club's scouting department, and was on Mourinho's staff as one of his assistants by the time the Dragons won the 2003/04 UEFA Champions League. He followed the 'Special One' to Chelsea FC and then FC Internazionale Milano, before going it alone as coach of A. Académica de Coimbra last season. Porto hired him in June.