Coach's last minute Hibs homework

DNIPRO coach Evgeniy Kucherevskiy today claimed to be in the dark about Hibs, insisting he'll spend the hours before kick-off trying to identify the Easter Road side's key players.

The Ukrainians have already pinpointed the pace of Ivan Sproule as a major threat to their UEFA Cup hopes having dispatched general manager Andriy Stetsenko and assistant coach Vadym Tyschchenko to take in Hibs' match against Dundee United.

Kucherevskiy has also been studying a tape of Hibs' 3-0 win over Rangers at Ibrox, admitting surprise at the result but also adamant he wouldn't have been alone in that reaction.

He said: "I have had limited time to look in depth at individual players because of our own schedule, we are still working on that.

"But one of the things that has made an impression to me from the footage I have seen is that Hibs are very effective, particularly in midfield and attack. They are mobile, competitive and have a desire to win.

"Basically they are a team based on youth with a few more experienced players to control the team.

"I don't think we were the only ones surprised by their win against Rangers, everyone in Europe was surprised. But you don't base your preparations on what happened on such-and-such a date, you do so for the game in hand."

ESTABLISHED in 1925, Dnipro entered the first Soviet Championship by the name of "Stal", the Russian word for steel in 1936.

The club played under a number of different names before emerging as Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk after the collapse of the old Soviet Union. Dnipropetrovsk sits on the Dnipro river, a city with a population of 1,179,000 people which, as a major Soviet rocket building centre, was closed for long periods to tourists.

Colours: Blue and white

Stadium: Meteor (capacity 26,345)

Honours: Russian champions 1983, 1988. Russian Cup winners 1989. Ukrainian Championship runners-up 1993. Ukrainian Cup finalists 1995, 1997.