Dubious honour AEK's driving force

AEK Athens FC became the first foreign team to lose a game against FC BATE Borisov in Minsk on Matchday 3, but will look to send the Belarussian side back to the foot of UEFA Europa League Group I when the teams meet again in the Greek capital.

Previous meetings
• The teams met for the first time on Matchday 3 in what was BATE's first game against Greek opponents as well as AEK's maiden experience of Belarussian football.

Match background
• AEK have won their last two UEFA Europa League home games without conceding a goal.

• BATE have alternated between defeats and wins in their last four European away games, and since they lost 2-0 at SL Benfica on Matchday 1, they are due a win against AEK if the pattern holds.

Team facts
• Dušan Bajević is in his third spell as AEK coach. The former Yugoslavia striker spent four years at the club as a player, winning Greek titles in 1978 and 1979, in between spells with FK Velež from his native Mostar.

• He won four Greek championships in his first stint as AEK coach (1988-96) before incensing many fans by moving to Olympiacos FC and winning titles there in three successive seasons. He rejoined AEK in 2002 but quit midway through a match against Iraklis FC in 2004. His current reign began in 2008.

• BATE, famously a team founded at a Borisov tractor factory, are led by Viktor Goncharenko, who last season became the youngest coach to hold the reins at a side in the UEFA Champions League, aged 31. A year older, he is now the youngest coach to lead a side into the UEFA Europa League group stage.

• Once a BATE defender, Goncharenko was forced to retire young through injury but stayed at the club as a coach, working his way up through the ranks before taking sole command in 2007.

• BATE claimed their fourth successive Belarussian title – and their sixth in total – with a 4-0 win over FC Naftan Novopolotsk on 5 October, which gave them an unassailable lead with five games to spare.

• Coach Goncharenko remained optimistic about his side's UEFA Europa League prospects afterwards, saying: "We are not in a good position now, but anything can happen in football. We will do our best in the next matches."

• AEK have the worst disciplinary record in the group stage so far, with eleven yellow cards and four red ones from their three games to date.

• BATE host Benfica on Matchday 5, with AEK at home to Everton on the same day, 2 December.