Eintracht Frankfurt v Lazio facts

Top spot in UEFA Europa League Group H is up for grabs as Eintracht Frankfurt and Lazio lock horns on matchday two with three points already in the bag following opening 2-1 wins against, respectively, Marseille and Apollon Limassol.

Previous meetings
• The clubs have never previously met in UEFA competition.

• Eintracht have a mixed bag of results against Italian opposition, their most recent encounter resulting in a 2-1 defeat at home to Palermo in the 2006/07 group stage.

• Lazio have six wins in 12 games against Bundesliga clubs, but only one in Germany – 2-0 at Stuttgart in the 2012/13 UEFA Europa League round of 16. Their last visit ended in a 3-0 defeat by Bayer Leverkusen in the 2015/16 UEFA Champions League play-offs – the Rome club's only European tie outside the UEFA Europa League in the last ten years.

Form guide
Eintracht
• A dramatic 2017/18 German Cup final victory over Bundesliga champions Bayern München – 3-1 in Berlin – not only gave Eintracht their first major silverware in 30 years but also secured their first European campaign in five.

• Eintracht's only European participation in the past dozen seasons came in 2013/14, when they successfully negotiated the UEFA Europa League play-offs and group stage before going out to Porto in the round of 32.

• The 1980 UEFA Cup winners won four of their five home fixtures in that 2013/14 campaign, including all three in the group stage, and have not lost at home in Europe since that 2006 defeat to Palermo – a run of six matches (W4 D2). Eintracht have won 11 of their last 14 European home games.

Lazio
• Edged out of fourth place and into fifth in last season's Serie A by Internazionale on the final day, Lazio are back for a seventh venture into the UEFA Europa League, their best performances having been in 2012/13 and 2017/18, when they reached the quarter-finals.

• The Rome side have played more games in the competition than any other Italian club, this being their 58th – and 38th in the group stage. Their last five group stage participations have all been successful – after failures in the first two – and they have topped their section on three of those occasions.

• Runners-up to Inter in the 1997/98 UEFA Cup, Lazio had three wins and three losses on the road in last season's UEFA Europa League, the matchday six defeat at Zulte Waregem ending the club's competition record-equalling run of 11 away games unbeaten (W4 D7) that had lasted since October 2013.

Links and trivia 
• Ante Rebić (Eintracht) and Milan Badelj (Lazio) were members of the Croatia squad that finished runners-up at the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Rebić has played in Italy with Verona and Fiorentina, while Badelj has played in Germany with Hamburg, his two games against Eintracht bringing two defeats and two draws.

• Lazio's Sergej Milinković-Savić and Dušan Basta have both played alongside Eintracht's Filip Kostić for Serbia, while Frederik Rønnow (Eintracht) and Riza Durmisi (Lazio) are both Danish internationals.

• Lazio hold the record for the most draws in the UEFA Europa League, group stage to final (18).

The coaches
• Austrian coach Adi Hütter was appointed by Eintracht Frankfurt as the successor to Bayern München-bound Niko Kovač in May 2018, having just led Young Boys to their first Swiss league title in 32 years. A midfielder who spent seven years with Salzburg, he returned to lead the club to a domestic double in 2014/15 after managerial spells at Altach and Grödig. He then crossed the border to spend the next three seasons in Berne.

• Lazio boss since April 2016, when he replaced Stefano Pioli, Simone Inzaghi represented the club as a forward between 1999 and 2010, winning the Italian double in his debut season and the Coppa Italia twice more in later years. 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. His first trophy as coach was the 2017 Italian Super Cup.