This is only the hosts third ever European campaign, the first was only six seasons ago, it ended with a first round UEFA Cup defeat and they only avoided relegation that year, by virue of Boavista being involved in match fixing. In 2009-10 ,they lost in qualifying in this competition to an Israeli team and again struggled in the league, there is a pattern evolving here by the way. Incredibly , last season they finished third in SuperLiga, that qualified them for the Champions League, where they lost heavily to Zenit (8-3 on aggregate), onto the Europa League and they have started their group campaign with another heavy defeat to Fiorentina and "home" draw with Pandurii Lignitul Târgu. I said "home" as that match, like tonight is being played in Guimaraes, some 40km from their real home , which is not up to UEFA standard. Only a little over 1,300 attended the match with the Romanian team and it is very difficult to see interest being much greater this evening, certainly not from the locals.

We have spoken several times previously about how certain countries respect the competition, especially those from the Iberian Peninsula and Eastern Europe , definitely not the French teams for example. These two both fall into the former camp, but it will be very difficult for Paços to focus on the Europa League and staying in SuperLiga, they have struggled domestically in each previous season they have qualified for Europe and that goes double this time round and they sit bottom of the table, with a visit from those local rivals, Vitória Guimarães, who's ground they are using this evening, at the weekend. Survival must be a priority and the weekend fixture viewed as far more important, tonight they are without left winger Caetano (8-1-0 all comps this season), but have otherwise named their usual squad, however, a little rotation is expected. Coach Paulo Fonseca left in the summer to join Porto and half of the club's regular starters from last season, also departed for bigger pay cheques elsewhere, but with no large transfer fee to console them ( most were out of contract), Paços are weakened, bear little relation to the team which finished third last season and are almost, starting from scratch.

Dnipro are fighting for the title in Ukraine, where Shakhtar and Dynamo look a little weaker this year and seem particularly well suited to playing on the road, having won 7 of their last 9 away days, including a 1-0 win at Pandurii on matchday one. They expected to beat a weakened Fiorentina at home in their second group game, but La Viola battled to a 2-1 win and  Dnipro will now be looking for a win to get back on track. Experienced european campaigners nowadays, they came through a group containing PSV and Napoli last season and have a real touch of class with offensive players Evgen Konoplyanka (12-3-1 domestically this season), Evgen Seleznev (13-8-0), Ruslan Rotan (11-0-7) and Roman Zozulya (13-5-4), all regulars in the Ukranian national team. Coach Juande Ramos will be motivated back in his part of the world and his team should win this with a degree of comfort. 1.25 units Dnipro -0.75 ball 1.90-2.01 asian line.

Paços :Matias Degra,António Filipe,Tiago Valente,Nuno Santos, Grégory, Hélder Lopes, Ricardo, Filipe Anunciação, Tony, Romeu, André Leão, Rui Miguel, Rodrigo António, Seri, Rúben Ribeiro, Sérgio Oliveira, Christian, Bebé, Manuel José.

Good Luck.