Swansea seek clean sweep win against Kuban

Swansea City AFC will look to maintain their 100% record in Group A as they take on back markers FC Kuban Krasnodar, who are finding life tough in the UEFA Europa League group stage.

Previous meetings
• The sides are meeting for the first time and this is also Kuban's first encounter with Premier League opponents and Swansea's maiden tie against a Russian club.

• Worryingly for Kuban, no Russian team has won in their last 19 visits to England (D5 L14) since FC Zenit won 3-0 at Bradford City AFC in the 2000 UEFA Intertoto Cup. The last five Premier-Liga clubs to head to England all lost.

• Swansea's arch-rivals Cardiff City AFC came out on top in the only previous UEFA club encounters between sides from Wales and Russia. The Bluebirds and FC Torpedo Moskva traded 1-0 home wins in the 1967/68 European Cup Winners' Cup quarter-finals, with Cardiff winning the tie 1-0 in a replay in Augsburg, Germany.

Match background
• Prior to this season, Swansea had not played in Europe since the 1991/92 European Cup Winners' Cup, when they were beaten 10-1 on aggregate by AS Monaco FC in the first round. Back then, they qualified as Welsh Cup holders.

• Swansea's 1-0 win against FC St Gallen on matchday two left them top of Group A as one of four sides yet to concede in this season's group stage, along with PFC Ludogorets Razgrad, Eintracht Frankfurt and their Premier League rivals Tottenham Hotspur FC.

• Kuban kicked off their maiden European campaign with four straight wins in qualifying, eliminating Motherwell FC and Feyenoord on the way to the group stage. However, they have hit the skids since then, losing 2-0 at St Gallen and then 2-0 at home against Valencia CF on matchday two.

Team facts
• Kuban striker Djibril Cissé is well known in England, having played in the Premier League for Liverpool FC (2004-06), Sunderland AFC (2008-09) and Queens Park Rangers FC (2012-13). His only encounter with Swansea was a humiliating 5-0 home defeat for QPR against Michael Laudrup's side on the first day of the 2012/13 season.

• Swansea midfielder Pablo Hernández and Kuban central defender Ángel Dealbert were team-mates at Valencia CF from 2009-12, earning three successive third-place Liga finishes.

• Swansea's Belgian international winger Roland Lamah and Kuban's Senegalese striker Ibrahima Baldé played together at CA Osasuna in 2011/12.

• Kuban are one of four sides in the group stage who are disputing their first season in European competition along with Wigan Athletic FC, CS Pandurii Târgu Jiu and Estoril Praia.

Coach information
• Michael Laudrup's first season in south Wales ended with Swansea winning the first major English trophy in their history – the 2012/13 League Cup. The playmaker's career haul included the 1991/92 European Champions' Club Cup with FC Barcelona and seven league titles: one apiece with Juventus, Real Madrid CF and AFC Ajax, and four with Barça. As a coach, he won a Danish title with Brøndby IF and took unfashionable Getafe CF to the 2007/08 UEFA Cup quarter-finals.

• Kuban parted company with coach Dorinel Munteanu on 12 October as a reaction to kicking off with a pair of defeats in Group A and a run of one win in six Premier-Liga matches. Only appointed in August, Munteanu was capped a record 134 times by Romania and, as a coach, led FC Oţelul Galaţi to a shock Romanian title success in 2010/11.

• Viktor Goncharenko answered Kuban's call to end a six-year stay with FC BATE Borisov, where he won five Belarusian titles and steered his side into the UEFA Champions League group stage three times – also becoming, at the age of 31, the youngest ever coach in Europe's premier competition. Before that, Goncharenko first turned to management after his career as a defender with BATE was ended by injury aged 25.