Wolfsburg hoping for beginner's luck

Bundesliga winners for the first time in May, VfL Wolfsburg will be making their maiden UEFA Champions League appearance when they take on PFC CSKA Moskva in the opening round of Group B fixtures.

Match background
• It will be a night of firsts for Armin Veh's Wolfsburg. Besides being newcomers to the UEFA Champions League, they are also facing their first ever meeting with Russian opposition.

• CSKA – who last week replaced Zico with Juande Ramos as coach – are bidding to reach the latter stages for the first time since qualifying for the last eight of the inaugural UEFA Champions League season in 1992/93.

• This is the Moscow club's fifth appearance in the European Champion Clubs' Cup and their fourth since the introduction of a group stage.

• Novices on this stage, Wolfsburg can call on the experience of three players in their squad who have played UEFA Champions League football before: Ricardo Costa with FC Porto, Obafemi Martins with FC Internazionale Milano and Karim Ziani with Olympique de Marseille.

• Wolfsburg's last home fixture in Europe was a 3-1 defeat by Paris Saint-Germain FC in last season's UEFA Cup Round of 32 in February. That result brought an end to their first UEFA Cup campaign.

• CSKA fared well on their travels in Europe in 2008/09, winning three and losing just one of five matches en route to the last 16 of the UEFA Cup. Their away record in the UEFA Champions League makes less encouraging reading, CSKA winning just once of 12 group-stage matches on the road, a 3-1 success at PSG in 2004/05.

• Their only previous visit to Germany ended with a defeat at Hamburger SV in the 2006/07 UEFA Champions League.

• The Russian team had earlier defeated Hamburg 1-0 in Moscow – Dudu scoring the only goal – and went into their Matchday 6 game in Hamburg with hopes of reaching the knockout stage for the first time. Those aspirations disappeared as they let a 2-1 lead slip in an eventual 3-2 defeat and their group rivals, Porto and Arsenal FC, got the point each they needed in a goalless draw in Portugal.

Team ties
• 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 pair of Bosnia-Herzegovinian internationals, Zvjezdan Misimović and Edin Džeko, could come up against compatriot Elvir Rahimić, who plays for CSKA.