Zenit v Celtic background

Zenit will have to reprise their exceptional home form in this competition if they are to recover from a 1-0 defeat at Celtic, who visit St Petersburg bidding to reach the round of 16 for the first time.

• Celtic required only three points to take third place in their UEFA Champions League section whereas Zenit chalked up 16, scoring 17 goals, in topping UEFA Europa League Group L ahead of fellow qualifiers Real Sociedad.

Previous meetings
• Celtic's dominant first-leg display in Glasgow against a Zenit side playing outside their domestic season yielded just one goal – scored 12 minutes from time by midfielder Callum McGregor. It brought the Scottish club their first European home win in the spring for 14 years.

• Zenit's solitary experience of Scottish opposition prior to the first leg came on arguably the greatest night in the St Petersburg club's history – when they defeated Celtic's arch-rivals Rangers 2-0 in the 2007/08 UEFA Cup final in Manchester.

• Celtic have a positive balance in their seven matches against Russian opposition (W4 D2 L1). Their record in Russia is equally impressive (W2 D1 L0), with victories in each of their last two visits – 2-0 at Dinamo Moskva in the 2009/10 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round (to reverse a 1-0 defeat at home) and 3-2 at Spartak Moskva in the 2012/13 UEFA Champions League group stage.

Form guide
• Zenit have never lost at home in the UEFA Europa League, group stage to final, winning 16 of their 17 matches in St Petersburg, the only exception a 2-2 draw against Sevilla in the 2014/15 quarter-finals. They have won 11 of their last 13 home games in European competition, losing two.

• Zenit conceded one goal in each of their three home victories during this season’s group stage.

• Celtic have never won away from home in the UEFA Europa League, group stage to final (D8 L5).

• The Glasgow club's 3-0 win at Anderlecht in this season's UEFA Champions League group stage is their only European away win outside the qualifying phase in 19 matches (D6 L12) – since that 3-2 success at Spartak in 2012/13.

• Celtic lost 7-1 at Paris Saint-Germain in their most recent away fixture – the second heaviest European defeat in their history after the 7-0 loss at Barcelona on matchday one of the 2016/17 UEFA Champions League.

• UEFA Cup runners-up to Porto in 2002/03 and quarter-finalists the following season, the Glasgow club have made it into the UEFA Europa League knockout phase just once before, losing 4-3 on aggregate (3-3 home, 0-1 away) to Internazionale in 2014/15.

• Zenit are playing springtime European football for the eighth year in a row. This is the fifth season during that sequence in which they have participated in the UEFA Europa League round of 32.

• The Russian side were successful at this stage of the competition on each of their first three sorties – against Young Boys in 2010/11, Liverpool in 2012/13 and PSV Eindhoven in 2014/15 – but lost their most recent round of 32 tie, going out on away goals to Anderlecht last season after a 3-3 aggregate draw.

• Zenit finished third in last season's Russian league and reached the UEFA Europa League group stage after overcoming Bnei Yehuda in the third qualifying round and Utrecht in the play-offs – both on 2-1 aggregate margins, the latter after extra time.

• Celtic won the Scottish domestic treble last season – for the fourth time in their history – without losing a match, an unprecedented achievement. They came through three qualifying ties to reach the UEFA Champions League group stage for the second successive year, overcoming Linfield, Rosenborg and, in the play-offs, Astana.

• Zenit have lost the away first leg in UEFA competition 15 times, recovering at home to win the tie on five occasions. When they have lost the first leg on the road by a 1-0 scoreline, they have gone through two times out of three, most recently in this season's play-off against Utrecht, the second leg of which they won 2-0 after extra time.

• Celtic have triumphed in 32 of the 45 UEFA competition ties in which they won the home first leg. Their record when winning the first leg 1-0 at home is a positive one: seven aggregate wins to five defeats. Furthermore, they have gone through on each of the past five such occasions, most recently in the third qualifying round of the 2015/16 UEFA Champions League against Qarabağ (0-0 away). On four of the five occasions that they were unable to defend that 1-0 first-leg lead, they failed to score in the return.

UEFA Europa League squad changes
• Zenit
In: Egor Baburin, Ilya Skrobotov, Anton Zabolotni
Out: Artem Dzyuba, Maksim Karpov, Ivan Novoseltsev, Maksim Rudakov

• Celtic
In: Scott Bain, Jack Hendry, Charly Musonda
Out: Kundai Benyu, Jonathan Hayes, Conor Hazard, Liam Henderson, Regan Hendry, Mark Hill, Jamie McCart, Erik Sviatchenko

Links and trivia
• Aleksandr Kokorin scored the winning goal for Dinamo Moskva away to Celtic in the 2009/10 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round.

• When Celtic last appeared in the UEFA Europa League round of 32, the coach of the side that beat them, Internazionale, was current Zenit boss Roberto Mancini.

• Celtic's Brendan Rodgers was on the losing side when his Liverpool team went out to Zenit in the 2012/13 round of 32.

• Celtic's Dedryck Boyata (2009–13) and Scott Sinclair (2013) played under Mancini at Manchester City.

• Sinclair and Zenit's Branislav Ivanović were team-mates at Chelsea between 2008 and 2010, although the former had loan spells at Birmingham and Wigan before departing for a permanent move to Swansea.

• Eboué Kouassi made nine Russian league appearances for FC Krasnodar in 2016/17.

• Kolo Touré, now on Celtic's coaching staff, was part of the Manchester City squad that won the Premier League title in 2011/12 under Mancini.

• Suspended for next match if booked: Aleksandr Erokhin, Domenico Criscito, Leandro Paredes, Mathías Kranevitter (Zenit); Jozo Šimunović, Olivier Ntcham (Celtic).

Penalty shoot-outs
• Zenit have yet to feature in a UEFA penalty shoot-out.

• Celtic's record in UEFA penalty shoot-outs is W1 L2:
4-5 v Internazionale, 1971/72 European Champion Clubs' Cup semi-final
4-5 v Valencia, 2001/02 UEFA Cup third round
4-3 v Spartak Moskva, 2007/08 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round

The coaches
• Former Italy international forward Roberto Mancini took charge of Zenit in June 2017. A Serie A and European Cup Winners' Cup winner as a player with both Sampdoria and Lazio, he coached Internazionale and Manchester City to domestic league championships, and more recently claimed a Turkish Cup triumph with Galatasaray. He has won 12 domestic cups in total as a player and manager.

• Celtic's Northern Irish boss Brendan Rodgers retired early as a player but made his name in management at Swansea, steering the Welsh club into England's top flight before leaving for Liverpool in June 2012. He led the Reds to a Premier League runners-up spot in 2013/14 but was dismissed in October 2015, resurfacing at Celtic, where he won the Scottish treble with an undefeated record in his first season.