• Dynamo drew their opening two group games before doing the double over Rennes (2-1 away, 3-1 home) then sealing their progress in top spot by defeating Astana 1-0 away on matchday five. It is the fourth time they have won their UEFA Europa League group – one shy of Salzburg's record – but they have never previously done so undefeated.
• Jablonec have managed just two points from their first five fixtures and lost the last two – 1-2 at Astana and 0-1 at home to Rennes, the first game in which they failed to score.
Previous meetings
• Jablonec held Dynamo at home on matchday two, coming from two goals down to draw 2-2 and earn their first ever group stage point. It was the Czech side's maiden encounter with Ukrainian opposition in UEFA competition.
• Dynamo have hosted Czech clubs on seven previous occasions and been victorious six times, all of those wins having been achieved with clean sheets. The exception was a 0-1 defeat to Sparta Praha in the second qualifying round of the 1998/99 UEFA Champions League, but they won the second leg of that tie by the same score and went through in a penalty shoot-out.
Form guide
Dynamo
• Ukrainian league runners-up to Shakhtar Donetsk last term, Dynamo entered the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round, where they defeated another Czech side, Slavia Praha, 3-1 before going out in the play-offs to Ajax (1-3 away, 0-0 home).
• This is Dynamo's seventh involvement in the UEFA Europa League and sixth group stage campaign; four of the previous five were also successful, the exception in 2011/12. Their best performance was in 2014/15, when they reached the quarter-finals, having also been semi-finalists in the last ever UEFA Cup of 2008/09.
• Dynamo are unbeaten in their last ten home games in the UEFA Europa League group stage, winning eight. They have suffered just one defeat in their last 12 European matches in Kyiv (W7 D4) – 0-2 against Lazio in last season's UEFA Europa League round of 16, which led to their elimination.
Jablonec
• Third in last season's Czech Liga, Jablonec are competing in a UEFA group stage for the first time.
• They had been unsuccessful in four previous attempts to qualify for the UEFA Europa League proper, falling in the third qualifying round in both 2010/11 and 2011/12 then losing play-offs against Real Betis in 2013/14 and Ajax in 2015/16.
• The Czech club have recorded just one win in their last 11 European fixtures (D3 L7) – 3-2 at FC København in the 2015/16 UEFA Europa League third qualifying round. They have lost all three away games since by one-goal margins.
Links and trivia
• Jablonec captain Tomáš Hübschman spent ten years in Ukraine at Shakhtar, winning eight league titles, four Ukrainian Cups and the 2009 UEFA Cup. Among his 27 meetings with Dynamo (W15 D4 L8) were the two in the 2008/09 UEFA Cup semi-final that helped the Pitmen defeat their domestic arch-rivals 3-2 on aggregate.
• Ukrainian international Eduard Sobol is on loan at Jablonec from Shakhtar. His record against Dynamo for Metalurh Donetsk, Metalist Kharkiv, Zorya Luhansk and Shakhtar is W2 L6.
• The Czech club are one of five to have made their debut this season in the UEFA Europa League proper. The other four are Akhisar, Dudelange, Spartak Trnava and Sarpsborg, with only the latter still in contention to reach the knockout phase with a game to go.
The coaches
• Hired as Dynamo coach in July 2017, Aleksandr Khatskevich won seven successive league titles with the club as a player between 1997 and 2004, having also claimed five straight championships with Dinamo Minsk in his native Belarus. He later worked with Dynamo's youth and reserve teams before taking charge of the Belarus national side from 2014 to 2016. He was capped 38 times by his country, scoring four international goals, three of them in qualification for the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
• Petr Rada has taken on numerous coaching jobs in his native Czech Republic since hanging up his boots in 1996, including a nine-month spell as national team boss from July 2008. The former Dukla Praha defender's longest stint in charge of any team was at Jablonec between 2003 and 2007 and he returned over a decade later, in December 2017, steering the club to third place in the Czech Liga and into the group stage of a European club competition for the first time.
