Dinamo kick off against Chornomorets

GNK Dinamo Zagreb will look to put an end to a miserable run of results against Ukrainian opposition as FC Chornomorets Odesa make their first trip to Croatia in UEFA Europa League Group B.

Previous meetings
• This is the sides' first fixture in UEFA competition and Chornomorets' first encounter with Croatian opponents.

• Dinamo are on more familiar territory having played eight previous games against Ukrainian sides, though the results have not been encouraging – W0 D2 L6 (W0 D1 L3 at home).

• No Croatian club has defeated a Ukrainian counterpart in the last ten encounters (W0 D2 L8) since HNK Hajduk Split beat FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in the 1985/86 UEFA Cup third round.

Match background
• Dinamo have yet to make it through the group stage of this competition in five attempts. Their record in 12 UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League group stage home games to date is W3 D3 L6.

• Dinamo lost their first five games in last season's UEFA Champions League group stage but were spared a point-less campaign by a 1-1 draw at home against FC Dynamo Kyiv in their final fixture. They had drawn a blank in 2011/12, losing all six of their UEFA Champions League Group D games.

• This is Chornomorets's first UEFA group stage campaign. The game against Dinamo will be their seventh since entering the competition in the second qualifying round; their longest previous European campaign was a six-game voyage to the second round of the 1995/96 UEFA Cup.

• Chornomorets have won only one of their last 11 European away fixtures, 2-0 at FC Shakhtyor Soligorsk in the second round of the 2007 UEFA Intertoto Cup.

Team facts
• Dinamo are one of nine domestic champions in this season's group stage along with NK Maribor (Slovenia), FC Sheriff (Moldova), Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC (Israel), PFC Ludogorets Razgrad (Bulgaria), Legia Warszawa (Poland), FC Shakhter Karagandy (Kazakhstan), APOEL FC (Cyprus) and IF Elfsborg (Sweden).

• Chornomorets' Brazilian defender Anderson Miniero and Dinamo's Moroccan forward El Arbi Hillel were team-mates at Portuguese side Vitória SC in  2011/12.

• Dinamo right-back Jerko Leko has experience of Ukrainian football, having first left his current club for FC Dynamo Kyiv for what was a club record €4m in 2002. He won two league titles and three Ukrainian Cups with Dynamo before moving on to AS Monaco FC in 2006.

Coach information
• Miroslav Blažević's assistant when Croatia unexpectedly finished third at the 1998 FIFA World Cup, Branko Ivanković returned to begin a third spell in charge of Dinamo in early September having led the club to a domestic double in 2007. The former NK Varteks player coached Hannover 96 for a while, and spent four years in charge of Iran prior to club appointments in China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

• Chornomorets coach since November 2010, Roman Grygorchuk was a successful striker in his native Ukraine, also playing in Austria, Poland and Russia before going from the pitch to the bench in Latvia. He won three Latvian titles as FK Ventspils coach but then opted to return to Ukraine. In Odessa he won promotion to the top division in his first season in charge, while a sixth-placed finish in 2012/13 opened the door to Europe.