Dortmund look to roll back years in Donetsk

FC Shakhtar Donetsk host unbeaten Group D winners Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League round of 16 tie at the Donbass Arena.

• Shakhtar are bidding to reach the quarter-finals for only the second time but now face Jürgen Klopp's Dortmund side, who left an eye-catching calling card in the group stage by topping Group D ahead of three fellow domestic champions Real Madrid CF, AFC Ajax and Manchester City FC.

• This is Shakhtar's second appearance in the round of 16 – the first time they overcame AS Roma to reach the 2010/11 quarter-finals. Dortmund were most recently in the round of 16 in 2002/03 when competing in the second group stage.

• Dortmund, who have never lost in six previous contests against Ukrainian clubs, are looking to reach the last eight for the first time since 1997/98 when as defending champions they lost in the semi-finals. They got to the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals and beyond for three years running between 1996 and 1998 but have not been that far since.

Previous meetings
• Dortmund ran out 5-1 aggregate winners when the clubs met in the third qualifying round of the 2001/02 UEFA Champions League. Lars Ricken, now head of the club's youth department, and Sunday Oliseh scored in Dortmund's 2-0 away win in the first leg on 7 August 2001.

• Julius Aghahowa halved the deficit seven minutes into the return 15 days later, but the Bundesliga side hit back through goals from Jan Koller (2) and Márcio Amoroso to secure a 5-1 aggregate success.

• The lineups in Donetsk were:
Shakhtar: Virt, Florea, Oronkwo, Popov, Starostiak (M Lewandowski 79), Aliuţă (Atelkin 75), Bakharev, Tymoshchuk, Zubov, Aghahowa, Vorobey.
Dortmund: Lehmann, Evanilson, Dedê, Kohler, Metzelder, Heinrich, Oliseh, Ricken (Bobic 81), Rosický (Amoroso 64), Koller, Reina (Stevic 74).

Match background
• Shakhtar are looking for a third win in four home matches in this season's competition. Mircea Lucescu's men posted Group E victories against FC Nordsjælland and Chelsea FC before a 1-0 loss to Juventus at the Donbass Arena on matchday six cost them first place.

• Dortmund could prove awkward guests for Shakhtar judging by their efforts so far on their travels this term: besides winning 4-1 at Ajax, they were only denied victories at City and Madrid by late equalising goals.

• This is Shakhtar's first meeting with German opposition since 20 May 2009 when they overcame Werder Bremen 2-1 after extra time in the UEFA Cup final in Istanbul. Luiz Adriano and Jadson were the scorers as the Ukrainian club claimed their first European trophy.

• Eight of Shakhtar's starting XI that night remain at the club – Andriy Pyatov, Olexander Kucher, Fernandinho, Ilsinho, Luiz Adriano, Răzvan Raţ, Dmytro Chygrynskiy, and Darijo Srna – along with substitute Olexiy Gai.

• Shakhtar won their most recent two-legged contest with Bundesliga opponents, beating FC Schalke 04 2-1 on aggregate in the 2004/05 UEFA Cup round of 32 thanks to a 1-0 second-leg success in Gelsenkirchen.

• Dortmund are the only German team to have won at Shakhtar in four attempts. Shakhtar's overall record against Bundesliga outfits is W5 D2 L3.

• Dortmund have showed impressive resilience on their three previous visits to Ukraine. After overcoming Shakhtar in the 2001/02 qualifiers, they faced FC Dynamo Kyiv in that season's first group stage and battled back from two goals behind to earn a 2-2 matchday one draw thanks to second-half strikes from Koller and Amoroso. The German club subsequently won 1-0 at home.

• Dortmund also overcame FC Karpaty Lviv 4-3 in a 2010/11 UEFA Europa League group fixture in which they led 2-0, trailed 3-2 but eventually won thanks to late goals by Lucas Barrios (87) and Mario Götze (90+2). Nuri Şahin also scored that night. It was more straightforward in Germany, Dortmund winning 3-0.

• The Dortmund team that won in Lviv was: Weidenfeller, Owomoyela, Subotić, Hummels, Schmelzer, Bender (Da Silva 80), Şahin, Götze, Kagawa (R Lewandowski 64), Grosskreutz (Błaszczykowski 64), Barrios.

• Dortmund's overall record against Ukrainian sides is W5 D1 L0.

Team ties
• Mircea Lucescu was coach of the Romania team that lost 2-1 to West Germany in the group stage of the 1984 UEFA European Championship. As a player Lucescu was in the FC Dinamo Bucureşti side eliminated from the second round of the 1974/75 UEFA Cup by 1. FC Köln, beaten 4-3 on aggregate after a 3-2 second-leg loss in Germany. He did not face Bundesliga opposition again until Shakhtar's 2004/05 UEFA Cup tie with Schalke.

• Kucher, Yaroslav Rakitskiy and substitutes Marko Dević and Gai came up against Mats Hummels and Götze on 11 November 2011, when Ukraine and Germany played out a 3-3 draw in a friendly to mark the reopening of the NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium in Kyiv.

• Tomáš Hübschman's Czech Republic were 1-0 winners against the Poland of Jakub Błaszczykowski, Robert Lewandowski and Łukasz Piszczek in the group stage at UEFA EURO 2012, a result that eliminated the co-hosts.

• Dortmund's Polish contingent will face Shakhtar's Ukrainian internationals when their countries meet in Warsaw in 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying on 22 March. Błaszczykowski, Lewandowski and Piszczek were involved in a 1-1 friendly draw with a Ukraine team including Dević and Pyatov in September 2010. Błaszczykowski also featured when Poland fell 1-0 to a Ukraine side featuring Chygrynskiy, Vyacheslav Shevchuk, Gai and Pyatov in an August 2008 friendly.

• Fernandinho made his Brazil debut in a 3-2 friendly reverse against Germany in August 2011 in Stuttgart. Hummels and Götze featured for Germany, with Götze scoring.

• Raţ was in the Romania side beaten home and away by Neven Subotić's Serbia in 2010 World Cup qualifying. He did, however, help Romania defeat Błaszczykowski and Lewandowski's Poland 1-0 in a November 2009 friendly and, prior to that, scored his only international goal in a 5-1 friendly defeat of Germany in Bucharest in April 2004.

• Şahin played in Turkey's 2-0 friendly win against a Ukraine team including Pyatov, Kucher, Rakitskiy, Shevchuk, and Dević last June. He also hit an 85th-minute winner when Turkey beat Ukraine 2-1 in Kyiv in a UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifier in June 2007. Olexiy Polyanskiy and Taras Stepanenko were in the home team and the latter featured as Şahin struck again in Turkey's 2-0 home victory in the return.

• Srna scored in Croatia's 2-1 defeat of Germany at UEFA EURO 2008.

• Taison appeared in the FC Metalist Kharkiv team that got the better of Bayer 04 Leverkusen in this season's UEFA Europa League group stage, drawing 0-0 in Germany and winning 2-0 at home.

• Eduardo has not lined up against Bundesliga opponents since losing 2-1 at VfB Stuttgart in the 2004/05 UEFA Cup group stage with GNK Dinamo Zagreb.