Roma v Austria Wien background

Francesco Totti can make it a century of UEFA club competition appearances as Roma welcome Austria Wien, whose coach Thorsten Fink has crossed swords with the Giallorossi plenty of times.

Previous meetings
• The sides are meeting for the first time in UEFA competition.

• Roma beat Wacker Innsbruck 4-1 away and 1-0 at home in the 1992/93 UEFA Cup first round, in their only previous encounter with Austrian opponents.

• Austria Wien have won just once in ten matches against Italian teams (W1 D4 L5 – D2 L3 in Italy), beating Internazionale 2-1 in Vienna in a November 1983 UEFA Cup game. They have not won in seven attempts against Italian sides since then, and have scored only once in five visits to Italy.

Form guide
• Roma ended a seven-game wait (D3 L4) for a European victory with a 4-0 thrashing of Astra Giurgiu on matchday two. They remain unbeaten after two Group E fixtures.

• Austria also have four points, and are unbeaten in five European matches (W4 D1) since a 1-0 home loss to Trnava on 28 July.

• Austria have won all four of their European away games this season, scoring ten goals and conceding four.

• Roma advanced in both of their previous UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League group stage campaigns (2005/06, 2009/10).

• Austria have failed to progress in their last four UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League group stage campaigns, since making it to the last eight in 2004/05.

Links and trivia
• The journey from Vienna to Rome is around 750km.

• Roma captain Totti can make his 100th UEFA club competition appearance on matchday three.

• Totti became the eighth fortysomething to feature in the UEFA Europa League on matchday two, taking the pitch two days after his 40th birthday. Brad Friedel remains the oldest participant at 42 years and 173 days, while the oldest outfield player is David Weir at 40 years and 283 days.

The coaches
• Luciano Spalletti returned to Roma in January after five years in Russia with Zenit, where he claimed two league titles. He lifted the Coppa Italia twice with Roma from 2005–09, having made his name by leading unfancied Udinese to fourth place in Serie A in 2004/05.

• A four-time Bundesliga winner as a Bayern München midfielder, Thorsten Fink has been in charge at Austria Wien since 2015. Twice a league champion in Switzerland as Basel coach between 2009 and 2011, he subsequently occupied the helm at Hamburg and APOEL.

• Fink scored twice against Roma in a 3-0 Karlsruhe victory in the 1996/97 UEFA Cup, and faced them four times as a coach with Basel (W2 L2).

• Fink and Spalletti were on opposite benches when Roma and Basel met in the 2009/10 UEFA Europa League group stage; Fink's Basel prevailed 2-0 at home, but lost 2-1 in Rome.