BATE aim for Sheriff repeat

Having come away from Moldova with a 1-0 win on Matchday 3, FC BATE Borisov could earn a first stab at springtime European football as FC Sheriff come calling in UEFA Europa League Group E.

• The combination of a BATE win and an FC Dynamo Kyiv success at home against AZ Alkmaar in the section's other game would confirm the Belarusian side's progress to the round of 32.

Previous meetings
• The sides met for the first time in UEFA club competition on Matchday 3.

• Sheriff and BATE met in the quarter-finals of the Commonwealth Cup – the annual friendly competition that brings together champions of former Soviet nations – on 24 January 2007. Former Belarusian Under-21 international Aleksei Kuchuk scored the only goal as Sheriff won 1-0.

• BATE played another Moldovan outfit, FC Nistru Otaci, in the 2006/07 UEFA Cup first qualifying round, winning 2-0 at home and 1-0 away.

Match background
• BATE are unbeaten in their last five UEFA Europa League games home and away.

• They have not lost in four home fixtures this season either, recording three wins and a draw, scoring 12 and conceding two.

• Sheriff have gone nine games – three draws and six defeats – without winning away from home in Europe since a 1-0 UEFA Champions League second qualifying round victory at FC International Turku on 15 August 2009.

Team facts
• BATE's Vitali Rodionov has been penalised for 13 fouls in the first three matchdays, more than any other player in the group stage. However, he has been fouled 11 times in return; only four players in the competition have been awarded more free-kicks.

• BATE coach Viktor Goncharenko is still just 33, having become the youngest coach to take charge in a UEFA Champions League group stage game when BATE tackled Real Madrid CF on 17 September 2008. He was just 31 at the time. A defender whose career was ended by injury at the age of 25, he has been in charge at BATE since 2007, winning three successive Belarusian titles.

• Sheriff coach Andrei Sosnitski took over at the helm following the departure of his former boss and fellow Belarusian Leonid Kuchuk midway through the 2009/10 season, but it was soon business as usual with the club winning another domestic double.

• Initially a trainee at FC Dinamo Minsk, he later played for FC Alania Vladikavkaz, FC Uralmash Ekaterinburg, FC Chernomorets Novorossiysk and FC Dinamo Brest, where he spent the majority of this playing career. On hanging up his boots, he started his life as a coach at FC Slavia Mozyr before returning to Dinamo Brest.