Fiorentina v PAOK background

Fiorentina are inching towards the round of 32 as they welcome PAOK on matchday five, with the Salonika side out to regain their Group J balance after back-to-back defeats.

• Fiorentina are through with a draw; PAOK must win, or draw and hope Qarabağ lose away to Slovan Liberec to maintain their hopes.

• Qarabağ qualify with a victory or with a draw if PAOK do not win; Liberec need three points to stay in contention.

Previous meetings
• PAOK held Fiorentina to a 0-0 draw in the teams' first Group J encounter on matchday one.

• The clubs had previously met in the 2014/15 group stage, Vincenzo Montella's Fiorentina winning 1-0 in Greece before a 1-1 draw in the reverse fixture against Angelos Anastasiadis's men. The line-ups for the match in Florence on 6 November 2014 were:
Fiorentina: Tătăruşanu, Rodríguez, Vargas (Valero 70), Pizarro, Kurtič, Basanta, Pasqual, Lazzari (Marin 57), Gomez, Tomović (Babacar 86).
PAOK: Glykos, Katsikas, Tziolis, Golasa, Pereyra (Maduro 46), Salpingidis (Martens 71), Miguel Vítor, Spyropoulos (Tzavellas 90), Tzandaris, Athanasiadis.

• Fiorentina's one other game against Greek opposition was a 1-1 draw at AEK Athens in the 2007/08 UEFA Cup group stage.

• PAOK's overall record against Serie A sides is W1 D5 L7 (D2 L4 in Italy). They have scored just once in their five matches in Italy.

Form guide
• Fiorentina are unbeaten in seven group stage fixtures (W5 D2).

• PAOK have lost only one of their four European away games this season (W2 D1 L1) – 2-0 at Qarabağ on matchday three.

• Fiorentina have a 100% qualification success rate in four UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League group stage campaigns.

• The Salonika outfit have qualified from three of their previous six UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League group stage forays.

Links and trivia
• The journey from Salonika to Florence is around 1,000km.

• PAOK's Mame Baba Thiam (Internazionale, Lanciano, Juventus), José Angel Crespo (Padova, Bologna and Verona) and Željko Brkić (Udinese, Siena, Cagliari and Carpi) have all played for Italian clubs.

The coaches
• A European champion as a player with Juventus (1996) and Borussia Dortmund (1997), former Portugal midfielder Paulo Sousa joined Fiorentina in June 2015 fresh from landing the 2013/14 Israeli crown with Maccabi Tel-Aviv and the 2014/15 Swiss championship with Basel.

• Vladimir Ivić took charge at PAOK in March this year following a spell as the club's youth coach. An attacking midfielder, he won three Serbian titles with Partizan and played for AEK Athens and Aris Thessaloniki before a four-season PAOK stint.