Hannover hope to douse Vorskla home fires
Friday, September 16, 2011
Article summary
FC Vorskla Poltava will look to extend a four-game unbeaten home run in Europe when they host Bundesliga outfit Hannover 96 in their second UEFA Europa League Group B match.
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Article body
FC Vorskla Poltava will look to extend a ten-year unbeaten run at home in Europe when Hannover 96 head to Ukraine in UEFA Europa League Group B.
Previous meetings
• The sides are meeting for the first time in UEFA competition, and neither club have met teams from their opponents' home nations in competitive games before.
Match background
• Vorskla have lost just twice in 11 European home games, and are unbeaten in their last four; a run which stretches back over a decade to a 2-1 UEFA Cup loss to Boavista FC on 14 September 2000.
• Hannover have yet to win away from home in UEFA competition, but this is only their third attempt.
• Hannover recorded one European victory on the road in ten attempts in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup – the non-UEFA affiliated precursor to the UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League – winning 1-0 at B 1909 Odense in October 1968.
Team facts
• Vorskla winger Oleksiy Chychkov celebrates his 24th birthday the day after the match.
• Vorskla did not have a single shot on target on matchday one.
• Vorskla boss Mykola Pavlov won a Ukrainian title as FC Dynamo Kyiv coach in 1995/96, and guided both FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk and FC Illychivets Mariupil in European games.
• Pavlov's Dnipro were eliminated from the 1993/94 UEFA Cup by a German side, Eintracht Frankfurt; a 1-0 win in Ukraine was not enough to overturn their 2-0 first-leg defeat in Germany.
• Hannover boss Mirko Slomka led the club he had previously served as a player and assistant coach into Europe with a fourth-placed Bundesliga finish in his first season in charge.
• Slomka is competing in the group stage of this competition for the first time, but enjoyed success in the 2005/06 edition. He led FC Schalke 04 from the round of 32 to the semi-finals after replacing Ralf Rangnick as coach following the group phase.
• Vorskla defender Armend Dallku and forward Ahmed Januzi know Hannover's Altin Lala from their time together with the Albania national team.
• Vorskla take their name from the river that runs through Poltava.
