Ukraine v Slovenia background

Ukraine will try to win a play-off for a major final tournament at the sixth attempt – and beat Slovenia for the first time in the process.

Previous meetings
• Ukraine have yet to overcome Slovenia in four games – two draws and two defeats – which includes losing out to the Slovenes in the play-offs for UEFA EURO 2000.

• The second leg of this tie takes place exactly 16 years to the day since a 1-1 draw in Kyiv earned Slovenia that play-off success.

• Then, as now, Srečko Katanec was coach of Slovenia, while his current assistant Aleš Čeh captained the national team in that UEFA EURO 2000 tie.
 
 Form guide
• A 1-0 loss to Spain in their last Group C game ended a run of three straight home victories for Ukraine. Slovenia's away record in UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying was W2 D0 L3.

• Ukraine's only previous UEFA European Championship play-off culminated in that 3-2 aggregate defeat by Slovenia.

• Ukraine have also missed out in four FIFA World Cup finals play-offs, for the tournaments in 1998 (1-3 agg Croatia), 2002 (2-5 agg Germany), 2010 (0-1 agg Greece) and 2014 (2-3 agg France).

• Coach Mykhailo Fomenko, discussing that last tie when Ukraine won 2-0 at home but lost 3-0 in France, said: "Of course it would be better to start away but we cannot change anything about the draw. We have experience of beating France in a home first leg and will use that in our preparations."

• Slovenia have been involved in two EURO play-offs, winning one and losing one. They overcame Ukraine 3-2 on aggregate to reach their first finals – UEFA EURO 2000 – but succumbed 2-1 to neighbours Croatia to sit out the 2004 event.

• Slovenia also won both their past World Cup play-offs: they edged past Romania (3-2 agg) to qualify for the 2002 tournament and Russia on away goals (2-2 agg) to get to the 2010 finals.

Disciplinary
• Ukraine's Olexandr Kucher and  Taras Stepanenko serve a one-game ban in the first leg having collected three bookings during the qualifying group stage; Artem Fedetskiy and Ruslan Rotan will incur a suspension with their next yellow cards.

• Josip Iličić and Dejan Lazarevič will incur a ban with their next bookings.

Trivia and links
• Ukraine finished third in Group C behind European champions Spain and Slovakia. Slovenia recovered from a 1-0 upset in Estonia in their opening fixture to come third in Group E behind England and Switzerland.

• Ukraine were EURO finals debutants as co-hosts of UEFA EURO 2012. Their biggest achievement at international level was progressing to the 2006 World Cup quarter-finals.

• Slovenia's sole preceding EURO finals, back in 2000, produced a group stage exit.