PAOK v Schalke background

PAOK will look to get their own back in the UEFA Europa League round of 32 as they welcome Schalke, the German side having come out on top in their only previous continental tie.

Previous meetings
• Huub Stevens' Schalke eliminated Jens Keller's PAOK in the 2013/14 UEFA Champions League play-offs, winning 3-2 in Greece after a 1-1 first-leg draw, despite being reduced to ten men through Jermaine Jones's 64th-minute red card.

• The teams for that second leg in Salonika on 27 August 2013 were:

PAOK: Jacobo, Skondras, Tziolis, Lucas (Georgiadis 80), Stoch, Salpingidis (Oliseh 74), Miguel Vítor, Kaçe, Katsouranis, Athanasiadis* (Necid 74), Kitsiou*.

Schalke: Hildebrand, Höwedes*, Felipe Santana, Draxler, Clemens (Meyer* 61, Neustädter 70), Höger, Jones, Farfán (Matip 83), Uchida*, Fuchs, Szalai.

Schalke defeated Asteras twice in the 2015/16 group stage©AFP/Getty Images

*Registered to play for their club in this season's group stage

• PAOK's record in nine games against German sides is W2 D4 L3 (W1 D2 L2 in Salonika).

• Schalke's eight matches against Greek teams have ended W5 D1 L2 (W3 D0 L1 in Greece). They are unbeaten in the last six of those encounters.

Form guide
• PAOK were victorious in their last two group stage fixtures – including an impressive 3-2 success at Fiorentina – but have won just two of their five European home matches this season (W2 D1 L2).

• Schalke won their first five group games and had already confirmed their round of 32 place when they lost their last fixture, 2-0 at Salzburg.

• PAOK last reached the round of 32 in 2013/14, losing home and away to Benfica without scoring. The nearest PAOK have come to winning a major UEFA competition was when they reached the last eight of the 1973/74 European Cup Winners' Cup. In total, they have played eight springtime UEFA games without registering a victory (D3 L5).

• UEFA Cup winners in 1997, Schalke lost 3-0 on aggregate to Shakhtar Donetsk at this stage of last season's competition.

• Suspended: none.
Misses next match if booked: José Ángel Crespo, Léo Matos, Marin Leovac, Fernando Varela, Dimitrios Pelkas (PAOK); Baba Rahman (Schalke).

Links and trivia
• The journey from Gelsenkirchen to Salonika is around 1,700km.

• Schalke's Yevhen Konoplyanka and PAOK's Léo Matos reached the UEFA Europa League final together with Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in 2014/15.

• International team-mates:
Yevhen Konoplyanka (Schalke) & Yevhen Shakhov (PAOK) – Ukraine
Sead Kolašinac (Schalke) & Gojko Cimirot (PAOK) – Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Huub Stevens has coached PAOK and Schalke©Getty Images

• PAOK vice-captain Stelios Malezas played in Germany with Fortuna Düsseldorf (2012/13, 2013/14), while team-mate Giannis Mystakidis was a trainee at Hoffenheim and Freiburg before returning to Greece in 2014.

• Klaas-Jan Huntelaar's next goal will be his 50th in UEFA club competition.

• Schalke (1997) are one of seven former UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League winners in the round of 32 along with Tottenham Hotspur (1972, 1984), Borussia Mönchengladbach (1975 & 1979), Anderlecht (1983), Ajax (1992), Zenit (2008) and Shakhtar (2009).

• The clubs have two former coaches in common: Gyula Lóránt and Huub Stevens.

The coaches
• Vladimir Ivić took charge at PAOK in March 2016 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 stint at PAOK.

• Schalke coach Markus Weinzierl progressed to last season's UEFA Europa League round of 32 with Augsburg, whom he had led since 2012. His playing career peaked when he spent a season with the first-team squad at Bayern München in 1998/99, though he never played a senior match.

UEFA makes new donation of €100,000 to ICRC
UEFA will mark a decade of helping Afghan landmine victims on Wednesday, when Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos presents a cheque for €100,000 to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

"I would like to pay tribute to the ICRC, who have been working relentlessly to help landmine victims, many of whom are children. Their programme in Afghanistan, which has been in place for several years, shows that football can offer real hope in challenging times," said UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin.

"I am glad that UEFA can help this cause, and that the sport we love can have a positive impact on the rehabilitation process of so many people in this troubled region," he added.

The donation supports the ICRC's physical rehabilitation programme for landmine victims and other people with disabilities in Afghanistan – providing artificial limbs, physiotherapy, vocational training and access to the rehabilitation centre's football team. About a third of patients are children.

Sergio Ramos will present the donation before his side's UEFA Champions League round of 16 first leg match against Napoli at the Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid on 15 February.

"The people benefiting from the ICRC programme in Afghanistan are an inspiration to us, as they set an example of how to approach life in a positive manner despite the problems that they face," the Real Madrid captain said.

Sergio Ramos was chosen to hand over the cheque after receiving the most votes in UEFA.com's Team of the Year, which was published in January, and added that it is "a privilege" to be "a source of motivation" to so many people.

"They don't stop dreaming, and they fight to make their dreams come true. As key figures in this sport, it's a true privilege for us footballers to be a source of motivation in their day-to-day lives, and to help them out," he said.

Over the course of a partnership lasting almost 20 years, UEFA has donated in excess of €3.5m to the ICRC to help disadvantaged people around the globe. Meanwhile, over 7 million votes were cast in selecting the UEFA.com users' Team of the Year 2016. More information on the award is available online at en.toty.uefa.com.