Winner takes all as Vaslui host Lazio

FC Vaslui host S.S. Lazio with victory for either side guaranteeing them a place alongside UEFA Europa League Group D leaders Sporting Clube de Portugal in the round of 32.

Previous meetings
• Giuseppe Sculli (71) earned Lazio a 2-2 draw when the sides met for the first time in Rome on matchday one, scoring after Vaslui captain Wesley had struck twice (59 & 63) to cancel out Djibril Cissé's 35th-minute opener from the spot. It was Vaslui's first game against Italian opposition.

• Lazio had previously taken on FC Dinamo Bucureşti in the 2007/08 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round, prevailing 3-1 in Bucharest after a 1-1 draw in Rome.

Match background
• Vaslui are yet to be beaten at home in UEFA club competition, recording six wins and four draws in their ten outings to date since making their European debut in 2008. They have maintained that unbeaten run despite playing their European home games this season in in Piatra Neamt, a little over 100km from their home town.

• Lazio have lost three of their last five European away games, with a 3-1 win at FK Rabotnicki in this season's UEFA Europa League play-offs the only victory in that run.

Team facts
• Vaslui midfielder Adrian Gheorghiu will play his first game since turning 30 on the eve of the match.

• Vaslui centre-back Gladstone has played in Italy; he was loaned to Juventus at the start of the 2006 campaign by EC Cruzeiro, featuring in one Coppa Italia game before being moved on to Hellas-Verona FC.

• Vaslui striker Adaílton also played in Italy for Parma FC (1997-98), Verona (1999-2006), Genoa CFC (2006-07) and Bologna FC (2007-10).

• Lazio striker Tommaso Rocchi's two goals in the play-offs took his total to 99 in all competitions for the club.

• Lazio boast Romanian talent in the form of left-back Ştefan Radu, who joined the club in 2008 from FC Dinamo Bucureşti following a successful loan spell. He and Vaslui's Silviu Bălace were team-mates at Dinamo in 2007.

• Once a midfield colleague of Fabio Capello's at SPAL 1907, Lazio boss Edoardo Reja has been coaching since 1979, but did not make his Serie A debut until 1998, and had to wait another decade to make his European debut with SSC Napoli.

• Vaslui coach Viorel Hizo twice took both FC Rapid Bucureşti and FC Ceahlăul Piatra Neamţ into Europe. Now 64, he has coached Vaslui (2006-07, 2008 and 2010-present) and Ceahlăul three times (1998-2000, 2003-04 and 2007-08), and has been Rapid coach in five separate spells (1993-95, 1995-96, 2001-02, 2004 and 2009).

• He came up against Italian opposition with Ceahlăul, taking on Juventus in the 1999 UEFA Intertoto Cup third round. His side lost the tie on the away goals rule, following a 1-1 draw in Romania and a 0-0 tie in Cesena.

• Hizo has yet to lose a European game at the Stadionul Ceahlăul, his record reading W6 D3 L0.