Dynamo Kiev - Club Brugge: the Club Facts

After the postponed match against Charleroi, Club heads to icy Kiev for the outward match of the 1/16th final in the UEFA Europa League. Read all Club Facts below!

THE COMPETITION.

Last season, Club eliminated the Ukrainians in the 3rd preliminary round of the UEFA Champions League. At home, Club won 1-0 thanks to a goal from Vanaken. The return match ended in a spectacular 3-3. Dynamo took the lead 3 times through Vitalii Buialskiy, Volodymyr Shepeliev and an owngoal. But each time Club was able to come alongside through Simon Deli, Ruud Vormer and Loïs Openda. It was then the first meeting between the two clubs in a European context.

Of Dynamo's 14 players who played in the 3-3 in Kiev, these 12 are still there: goalkeeper Denys Boyko, defenders Mykyta Burda, Vitaliy Mykolenko and Tomasz Kedziora, midfielders Volodymyr Shepelev, Oleksandr Andriyevskyi and Vitaliy Buyalskyi and strikers Benjami Verbic, Viktor Tsygankov, Gerson Rodrigues, Carlos de Pena and Artem Besedin. Only defender Tamás Kádár and striker Fran Sol looked elsewhere.

Since the previous confrontation:

• Club Brugge reinforced themselves with Federico Ricca, Éder Balanta, Youssoup Badji, Noa Lang (now ill), Bas Dost, Tahith Chong and Nabil Dirar. Charles De Ketelaere also had yet to play his first match for the A core at the time.
• joined these players at Dynamo: goalkeeper Ruslan Neshcheret, defenders Ilya Zabarnyi, Oleksandr Syrota, Volodymyr Kostevych and Oleksandr Tymchyk, midfielders Tudor Baluta and Bogdan Lednev and strikers Mikkel Duelund and Clayton.

Club Brugge is participating in the UEFA Europa League for the 9th time out of a total of 12 editions. Only in 2013-2014 and 2017-2018 did it fail to get through the preliminary rounds and in 2016-2017 it was eliminated in the UCL group stage. Only FC Salzburg and AFC Ajax participated more often than Club Brugge (10 times) from at least the UEL group stage. It is the third consecutive season that Club entered the UEFA Europa League safety net from the UCL group stage.

Club Brugge reached the Round of 32 (1/16th final) of the UEFA Europa League 5 times hon.

• It was eliminated by Valencia CF (2010), Hannover 96 (2012), FC Salzburg (2019) and Manchester United FC (2020).
• only in 2015 did Club go through when it was able to eliminate Aalborg BK.

This is the 1,616th European match of a Belgian club in Europe the 40th European match of a Belgian against a Ukrainian club. It is also Club Brugge's 328th European match and FC Dynamo Kyiv's 390th, as well as Blauw-Zwart's 71st match in the UEFA Europa League and 15th in the final phase.

[Photo: Simon Mignolet pulled off his first clean sheet for Club against Dynamo Kiev. Read more below]

THE OPPONENT

FC Dynamo Kiev was the national champion 28 times (13 times in the Soviet Union and 15 times in Ukraine) and won the cup 21 times (9 times in the USSR and 12 times in Ukraine). Last season it finished as vice champion behind Shakhtar Donetsk for the fourth consecutive season. The elimination in the UCL preliminary round against Club cost then-coach Aleksandr Khatskevich his head. Former player and sporting director Oleksiy Mykhalychenko became the head coach for the rest of the season. He then could not prevent Dynamo from being eliminated in the UEL group stage.

Last summer, 75-year-old Romanian Mircea Lucescu was appointed coach. He had previously spent 12 years with big rival Shakhtar (2004-2016), with whom he outplayed Blauw-Zwart in both 2004 (UCL preliminary round) and 2009 (UEL group stage). Eduard Sobol knows the Dynamo coach well, as under his leadership he played 16 matches at Shakhtar Donetsk, from which Club loaned him. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian cannot take on his compatriots on Thursday, as he is suspended following his red card in the last UCL match on the Lazio Rome pitch.

FC Dynamo Kiev, like Club, finished third in their group in the UEFA Champions League and thus entered this stage. They eliminated AZ Alkmaar and AA Gent in the preliminary rounds. In the group stage, they could not muster a point against giants Juventus and FC Barcelona. But a 4-on-6 against Hungarian Ferencvaros TC was enough for third place.

This season, the team leads the Ukrainian Premier League after 14 of 26 playing days. Last weekend the league resumed after a 2-month winter break. Dynamo did well in the standings. It beat Olimpik Donetsk itself (3-1), while major rival Shahkhtar did not get beyond a 0-0 at Kolos Kovalivka. As a result, Dynamo increases its lead to 3 points.

FC Dynamo Kiev plays its home matches at the Olympic National Sports Complex in the Ukrainian capital. It is the 2nd largest soccer stadium in Eastern Europe, after Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium. Originally built in 1923, the stadium was reopened in 2011 after construction works for the 2012 European Championship in Poland and Ukraine. Since then, the stadium seats 70,050 spectators. Among the games played there were the final of the Euro 2012 and the 2018 UEFA Champions League final.

[Photo: Ruud Vormer last year in Kiev; read more below].

THE REFEREE

Finnish ref Mattias Gestranius was appointed for Club's first European match this year. He is assisted by assistant referees Jan-Peter Aravirta and Mikko Alakare (Fin), fourth ref Daniele Doveri (Ita) and video assistant referee Stuart Attwell, assisted by Paul Tierney (Eng). The UEFA referee observer is Moldovan Igor Satkii. The UEFA delegate is Metin Kazançoğlu (Tur).

Gestrian is a 42-year-old ref from the southern Finnish village of Pargas, near Turku. He has been whistling matches at the highest Finnish level since 2006. From 2009, he became an international. He is currently a UEFA Category 1 ref, the second highest level. Gestrian whistled a European game with a Belgian club once before: last season he directed the UCL match between KRC Genk and FC Salzburg (1-4). It is only Club's 4th European match with a Finnish ref.

OTHER MATCHES THIS ROUND

do 18/02 18:55 Wolfsberger AC (Aut) - Tottenham Hotspur FC (Eng)
do 18/02 6:55 pm Real Sociedad de Fútbol (Esp) - Manchester United FC (Eng)
do 18/02 6:55 pm FK Crvena Zvezda (Srb) - AC Milan (Ita)
do 18/02 6:55 pm SK Slavia Praha (Cze) - Leicester City FC (Eng)
do 18/02 6:55 pm SC Braga (Por) - AS Roma (Ita)
do 18/02 6:55 pm FC Krasnodar (Rus) - GNK Dinamo Zagreb (Cro)
do 18/02 6:55 pm BSC Young Boys (Sui) - Bayer 04 Leverkusen (Ger)
do 18/02 6:55 pm Olympiacos FC (Gre) - PSV Eindhoven (Ned)
Thu 18/02 21h00 SL Benfica (Por) - Arsenal FC (Eng)
do 18/02 21h00 FC Salzburg (Aut) - Villarreal CF (Esp)
Thu 18/02 21h00 Molde FK (Nor) - TSG 1899 Hoffenheim (Ger)
Thu 18/02 21h00 Granada CF (Esp) - SSC Napoli (Ita)
do 18/02 21h00 Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC (Isr) - FC Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukr)
do 18/02 21h00 LOSC Lille (Fra) - AFC Ajax (Ned)
do 18/02 21h00 R. Antwerp FC (Bel) - Rangers FC (Sco)