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Europa League matchday three preview

FC Dynamo Kyiv and Beşiktaş JK meet again, Paris Saint-Germain FC chase a goalscoring milestone and Ricky van Wolfswinkel will look for a once-in-a-lifetime treble on matchday three.

Austria Wien's kit has been hung out, ready for action at AZ Alkmaar
Austria Wien's kit has been hung out, ready for action at AZ Alkmaar ©UEFA.com

Paris Saint-Germain FC will aim to reach a milestone in Slovakia on UEFA Europa League matchday three, with Beşiktaş JK gearing up for a fourth visit to FC Dynamo Kyiv. UEFA.com looks ahead with some unusual stats.

Not you again
Having last met in February, Dynamo are preparing for their seventh UEFA club competition meeting with Beşiktaş in Group E. The Black Eagles will note with some dread that they have yet to score a goal in Kyiv, where they lost 4-0 to Yuri Semin's side in last season's round of 32.

PSG's Slovakian chance
PSG are two goals shy of 100 in the UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League and may fancy scoring a few more as they visit Group F's bottom side, ŠK Slovan Bratislava; the last French club to visit Slovakia, Olympique de Marseille, left MŠK Žilina with a 7-0 victory, the biggest away win in UEFA Champions League group stage history.

21 today?
Sporting's Dutch forward Ricky van Wolfswinkel will send the world's statisticians into a frenzy if he can complete a notable scoring treble against FC Vaslui in Group D; the 22-year-old scored in the 21st minutes of his side's first two group stage games. Can he do it again?

First day at the office
Two clubs face their first European game under new coaches; Ilie Stan is the new man in charge at FC Steaua Bucureşti, who fired Roni Levy in the wake of matchday two, while AEK Athens FC have Nikos Kostenoglou in charge after Manolo Jiménez quit. The coach was a member of the AEK team that lost to their matchday three opponents FC Lokomotiv Moskva in the quarter-finals of the 1997/98 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. Will he get his revenge?

Marked men
Exctiting FC Vorskla Poltava attacker Roman Bezus and Sporting Clube de Portugal midfielder Stijn Schaars have emerged as the two men opposing defenders most love to hate in the group stage; both were fouled 11 times in the first two matchdays, more than any other players in the group stage.

Tomaszewski trembles
Ahead of their Group C rematch, Jan Tomaszewski remembers well the last time FC Rapid Bucureşti played host to Legia Warszawa in Europe. The legendary Poland goalkeeper was taken off after 32 minutes for conceding three soft goals, as his side went on to lose the first leg of the 1971/72 UEFA Cup tie 4-0. "Don't remind me about this match," he told UEFA.com.

A game of two halves
Athletic Club and FC Salzburg's meeting promises to be end-to-end stuff in an unusual respect; all four of Athletic's group stage goals this season have come before the break while Salzburg's four have all gone in after the interval.

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