Lazio v Dynamo Kyiv background

Two of the 2017/18 UEFA Europa League's highest-scoring teams meet in Rome as Lazio, who topped Group K in the autumn, host Group B winners Dynamo Kyiv in the first leg of the round of 16.

• Both clubs are competing at this stage for the third time.

• Lazio defeated Romania's FCSB in the round of 32, scoring five goals in a UEFA Europa League match, group stage to final, for the first time – in a 5-1 second-leg win at the Stadio Olimpico. Having gone down 1-0 in Bucharest, that made them the first Italian club to win a knockout phase tie in the rebranded competition after losing the first leg.

• Dynamo used the away goals rule to their advantage in the round of 32, drawing 1-1 away to AEK Athens before holding the Greek club 0-0 at home.

Previous meetings
• The clubs' only previous encounters came in the 1999/2000 UEFA Champions League first group stage, with Lazio winning 2-1 at home and 1-0 away, the latter with a team featuring current boss Simone Inzaghi. Both clubs went through to the second group stage, Lazio with twice as many points as Dynamo (14 to seven).

• The Rome club, coached by Sven Göran Eriksson, eventually outlasted their Ukrainian rivals, reaching the quarter-finals, and also went on to land a Serie A/Coppa Italia double. Dynamo, led by Valeriy Lobanovskiy, emulated them by scooping both major Ukrainian domestic trophies that season.

• Lazio have won all five of their European home games against Ukrainian opposition, scoring 16 goals and conceding three, and boast an overall record of W8 D1 L1. Those ten matches have been against five different clubs, the only defeat coming in their very first encounter, the opening leg of a 1975/76 UEFA Cup first round tie away to Chornomorets Odesa (0-1), who were representing the USSR; Lazio were 3-0 winners in the return.

• Dynamo have won only two of their 22 matches against Italian clubs, both against Lazio's city rivals Roma in the 2004/05 UEFA Champions League group stage – although the 3-0 win at the Stadio Olimpico was awarded by forfeit after a half-time abandonment with the visitors leading 1-0. The return fixture was won 2-0, although Dynamo failed to progress from the group despite accumulating ten points.

• The Kyiv club's record on Italian soil is W1 D4 L6.

Form guide
• Lazio, who have qualified for the UEFA Europa League knockout phase in each of their last five participations, have won eight of their last ten European home games (D1 L1), the most emphatic that 5-1 defeat of FCSB last time out.

• UEFA Cup runners-up in 1998, and UEFA Cup Winners' Cup winners the following year, Lazio are competing in the UEFA Europa League after a one-season absence, having made it back thanks to a fifth-place finish in Serie A last term.

• This is the Rome side's third appearance in the UEFA Europa League round of 16. They beat Stuttgart 5-1 on aggregate at this stage in 2012/13 (2-0 away, 3-1 home) but lost 4-1 over the two legs to Sparta Praha in 2015/16 (1-1 away, 0-3 home).

• Dynamo have found the net in each of their last four away games (W2 D1 L1). The goalless draw against AEK was the first time in nine European matches that they failed to score.

• Dynamo were the first team to book their place in the knockout phase, on matchday four, and scored 15 goals in the group stage – a figure bettered only by Group L qualifiers Zenit (17) and Real Sociedad (16). They now have 16 goals, one fewer than Lazio.

• Runners-up in the Ukrainian Premier League last season, Dynamo lost to Young Boys on away goals in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League before reaching the UEFA Europa League group stage courtesy of a 3-1 aggregate play-off win over Marítimo.

• Dynamo are in the UEFA Europa League round of 16 for the third time. They have won each of their previous two ties at this stage despite losing the away leg – against Manchester City in 2010/11 (2-0 home, 0-1 away) and another English club, Everton, in 2014/15 (1-2 away, 5-2 home). They were also semi-finalists in the last UEFA Cup, in 2008/09, losing to fellow Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk in the last four.

Links and trivia
• Lazio's Italian international striker Ciro Immobile scored a hat-trick in the round of 32 second leg against FCSB on his first start in this season's competition. His two goals in the group stage, against Vitesse and Zulte Waregem, came as a substitute.

• Immobile scored the only goal for Italy's Under-21s when they defeated a Ukraine side featuring Vitaliy Buyalskiy in a March 2013 friendly.

• Sergej Milinković-Savić and Aleksandar Pantić played together for Serbia's U-21 team, while Jordan Lukaku and Dieumerci Mbokani are former team-mates at Anderlecht (2011–13).

• Lazio's Nani and Stefan de Vrij have both faced Dynamo with previous clubs in the UEFA Champions League, the former successfully for Manchester United (4-2 away, 4-0 home in the 2007/08 group stage), the latter unsuccessfully for Feyenoord (1-2 away, 0-1 home in the 2012/13 third qualifying round).

• Dynamo coach Aleksandr Khatskevich played against Lazio for Dinamo Minsk in the 1994/95 UEFA Cup first round (0-0 in Minsk, 1-4 in Rome).

• Dynamo goalkeeper Denys Boyko conceded four goals in two games against Lazio (1-1 in Ukraine, 1-3 in Italy) while playing for Dnipro in the 2015/16 UEFA Europa League group stage, with Milinković-Savić and Marco Parolo among the scorers.

• Luis Felipe (Lazio) is available after a one-match ban.

• Suspended for next match if booked: Ciro Immobile (Lazio); Volodymyr Shepeliev, Denys Garmash, Derlis González, Júnior Moraes (Dynamo).

The coaches
• Lazio boss since April 2016, when he replaced Stefano Pioli, Simone Inzaghi represented the club as a forward from 1999–2010, winning the Italian double in his debut season. The younger brother of fellow ex-Italian international Filippo Inzaghi, with whom he played at home-town outfit Piacenza, he began coaching Lazio's youth teams immediately after hanging up his boots.

• Hired as Dynamo coach in July 2017, Aleksandr Khatskevich won seven successive league titles with the club as a player from 1996–2004, having also won five straight championships with Dinamo Minsk in his native Belarus. He later worked with Dynamo's youth and reserve teams before taking charge of the Belarus national side from 2014 to 2016. He was capped 38 times by his country, scoring four international goals.