CSKA face Wolfsburg in last-chance saloon

VfL Wolfsburg can secure second place in Group B on Matchday 5 but they can expect stiff resistance from a PFC CSKA Moskva side still with their own ambitions of reaching the last 16.

• CSKA's 3-3 draw at Manchester United FC last time out will have given fresh confidence to Leonid Slutski's side who could join Wolfsburg on seven points with victory in Moscow.

• The Bundesliga titleholders have the advantage, however, leading CSKA by three points and knowing that a draw at the Luzhniki Stadium would suffice to send them through.

Previous meeting
• A hat-trick by Grafite earned Armin Veh's Wolfsburg a 3-1 victory against CSKA in Germany on 15 September. Trailing 2-0 at half-time, Alan Dzagoev gave CSKA hope when he halved the deficit after 76 minutes but Grafite made sure with his third goal three minutes from time. Juande Ramos, the coach in charge of CSKA that day, made way for Slutski after Matchday 3.

Match background
• This is Wolfsburg's first trip to Russia and only the second time CSKA have welcomed visitors from Germany. The hosts ran out 1-0 winners the first time, Dudu's second-half strike earning victory against Hamburger SV in the 2006/07 group stage.

• CSKA have not reached the UEFA Champions League's latter stages since qualifying for the last eight in the inaugural campaign in 1992/93.

• With three goals apiece CSKA's Dzagoev and Wolfsburg's Grafite are among the four players second only to four-goal Cristiano Ronaldo in the competition's scoring table.

• CSKA's problem is not so much scoring goals as conceding them – only Debreceni VSC, Rangers FC and FC Zürich have let in more than the eight they have shipped so far and that trio are all bottom of their groups.

Team ties
• CSKA trio Igor Akinfeev, Sergei Ignashevich and Vasili Berezutski all featured for Russia when they lost 1-0 to Germany in a FIFA World Cup qualifier at the Luzhniki last month. Wolfsburg defender Marcel Schäfer remained on the bench for Germany as did CSKA's Aleksei Berezutski for Russia.

• Ignashevich was in the FC Lokomotiv Moskva side which reached the last 16 of the 2003/04 UEFA Champions League, en route recording a 3-0 home success against an FC Internazionale Milano team that included Obafemi Martins, now with Wolfsburg. No Russian club has successfully negotiated the group stage since.

• As coach of VfB Stuttgart, Veh oversaw a 3-1 aggregate victory against Russian side FC Saturn Moskovskaya Oblast in the 2008 UEFA Intertoto Cup. Veh's team lost 1-0 in Russia but made amends with a 3-0 home success.

• Wolfsburg's Zvjezdan Misimović and Edin Džeko are international colleagues with CSKA's Elvir Rahimić for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

• Wolfsburg's Karim Ziani featured as a substitute for Olympique de Marseille when they lost 2-0 at FC Spartak Moskva in the UEFA Cup round of 32 in February 2008 – a margin of defeat not big enough to stop OM advancing on aggregate.