Dynamo call upon superior European experience

FC Dynamo Kyiv will look to make their continental experience tell as they come up against last season's losing FA Cup finalists Stoke City FC in their opening UEFA Europa League Group E game.

Previous meetings
• The sides are meeting for the first time in Europe and this is also Stoke's first meeting with Ukrainian opponents.

• Dynamo's 20 games against English opponents have ended W4 D5 L11 (W4 D4 L2 at home). Their last five home games against Premier League opponents have included three wins and a draw with just one defeat, 4-2 against Manchester United FC in the 2007/08 UEFA Champions League group stage.

Match background
• A 2-0 defeat against FC Rubin Kazan in this season's UEFA Champions League third qualifying round was Dynamo's only loss in their last ten home games in Europe, with their record in that period reading W5 D4 L1.

• Dynamo have not lost in 14 UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League home games (six wins, eight draws) since a 3-0 loss to RSC Anderlecht in the second round of the 1992/93 competition, on 4 November 1992.

• Back in Europe after a 37-year absence, Stoke have won all four of their UEFA Europa League fixtures this season, having lost their only European fixture in eight appearances 4-0 at 1. FC Kaiserslautern on 27 September 1972. England FIFA World Cup winners Geoff Hurst and Gordon Banks featured in that UEFA Cup first round tie.

• Stoke have not conceded an away goal in Europe in three games since then, recoring a 0-0 draw at AFC Ajax in the 1974/75 UEFA Cup first round and winning both of their ties on the road this season 1-0.

Team facts
• Stoke's Danish goalkeeper Thomas Sørensen came up against his Dynamo counterpart Olexandr Shovkovskiy in a 1-1 draw between Denmark and Ukraine in 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifying in Copenhagen. Oleh Gusev featured in the return fixture in Kyiv, which Ukraine won 1-0.

• Stoke striker Peter Crouch and his Dynamo opposite number Andriy Shevchenko both scored as England beat Ukraine 2-1 in a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier at Wembley on 1 April 2009.

• Shevchenko played in the Premier League for Chelsea FC from 2006-09, though most of his last season was spent on loan back at AC Milan. He has played in 15 games against English sides in UEFA club competition – four of them as a Chelsea player – with the record W5 D7 L3 (counting AC Milan's penalty shoot-out defeat to Liverpool FC in the 2005 UEFA Champions League final as a draw). He scored four times in the course of those fixtures.

• He has never been on the losing side at home against an English club side, recording four wins, one draw and three goals.

• Once a midfielder and forward, the vastly experienced Yuri Semin is in his second spell as Dynamo coach, having won the 2008/09 Ukrainian title in his first stint, leading the club to the UEFA Cup semi-finals that year. He made his name in his native Russia with FC Lokomotiv Moskva, winning titles in 2002 and 2004.

• Semin has been in charge for eight games against English sides – four with Lokomotiv and four with Dinamo – with the record W1 D2 L5 (W1 D2 L1 as boss of the home team).

• Stoke's Welsh manager Tony Pulis is making his continental coaching debut this season. Regarded as a miracle worker for leading the Potters back into the Premier League, his only previous involvement in European competition came as a youth player; he featured for Wales as a defender in seven International Youth Tournament games in 1975 and 1976.