Henry returns as Arsenal eye revenge

Thierry Henry will face his old club Arsenal FC when FC Barcelona visit north London for the quarter-final first leg in a repeat of the 2006 UEFA Champions League final.

• Henry set new scoring records during eight years at Arsenal although the home side will be more focused on Barcelona, who shattered Arsenal's dream of a first European crown four years ago in Paris.

• The Gunners' skipper Cesc Fàbregas faces his old club too having left Barcelona for Arsenal in 2003.

Previous meetings
• Barcelona came from behind to defeat Arsenal 2-1 in the 2006 UEFA Champions League final at the Stade de France. Samuel Eto'o (76) and substitute Juliano Belletti (81) scored in quick succession to overturn Sol Campbell's 37th-minute opener for an Arsenal side reduced to ten men by goalkeeper Jens Lehmann's 18th-minute dismissal.

• The full lineups for that match on 17 May 2006 were:
Barcelona: Valdés, Oleguer (Belletti 71), Márquez, Puyol, Van Bronckhorst, Deco, Edmílson (Iniesta 46), Van Bommel (Larsson 61), Giuly, Eto'o, Ronaldinho.
Arsenal: Lehmann, Eboué, Touré, Campbell, Cole, Pires (Almunia 20), Gilberto, Fàbregas (Flamini 74), Hleb (Reyes 85), Ljungberg, Henry.

• The clubs also met in the 1999/2000 UEFA Champions League group stage, drawing 1-1 in Barcelona before the Catalan giants won 4-2 at Wembley.

• Current coach Josep Guardiola captained Barcelona in both matches while Henry appeared each time as a second-half substitute for Arsenal. Carles Puyol was on the bench for the game at Wembley.

Match background
• Arsenal will look to maintain their impressive run of home form, having recorded five straight wins in this season's UEFA Champions League, play-off round included. Arsène Wenger's men took their home goals' tally to 16 in five games when beating FC Porto 5-0 to overturn a 2-1 first-leg deficit in the first knockout round.

• Arsenal have fared well in two-legged ties with teams from Spain, winning five and losing just one.

• The Gunners overcame Spanish opponents at this stage of last season's UEFA Champions League, beating Villarreal CF 4-1 on aggregate with a 3-0 second-leg win at home.

• They have a less enviable history when it comes to meeting Spanish sides in major finals, however. Besides their 2006 defeat by Barcelona, they lost UEFA Cup Winners' Cup finals against Valencia CF (1980) and Real Zaragoza (1995).

• While Arsenal are chasing a third semi-final appearance, Barcelona are looking for their 11th.

• The holders are undefeated on their travels in this season's UEFA Champions League with one win and three draws. They held VfB Stuttgart 1-1 in the first leg of their last-16 tie in Germany before a 4-0 home win.

• Barcelona's last away defeat in the competition proper, qualifiers excluded, was in the 2007/08 semi-final at Manchester United FC.

• Barcelona's most recent meeting with a Premier League team came in last year's Rome final where they defeated United 2-0 through goals from Eto'o and Lionel Messi. That was their second major final against United, who beat them 2-1 in the 1991 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.

• The Spanish titleholders' last visit to London in May 2009 was high on drama as Andrés Iniesta's 93rd-minute goal earned them the 1-1 draw at semi-final opponents Chelsea FC that carried them into the UEFA Champions League final on the away-goals rule.

• Barcelona have won eight and lost nine of 17 previous two-legged meetings with teams from England.

Team ties
• In addition to their meetings during the 1999/2000 season, the rival coaches also lined up against each other when Wenger was coach of AS Monaco FC and Guardiola was a player at Barcelona.

• Guardiola came out on top with Barcelona beating Monaco both home (2-0) and away (1-0) in the 1993/94 UEFA Champions League group stage. Both clubs subsequently lost to AC Milan, Monaco in the semi-final, Barcelona in the final.

• Guardiola held aloft the European Champion Clubs' Cup on English soil as a player when the Blaugrana beat UC Sampdoria at Wembley in 1992. But he won only once in five attempts away to English opponents during his playing days.

• Henry is Arsenal's record league scorer. He hit 174 goals in 254 Premier League appearances, and 226 in 369 matches overall between 1999 and 2007.

• The French international won two league titles and three FA Cups during his time in north London. His first coach when he joined Monaco as a teenager was Wenger.

• Fàbregas travelled in the opposite direction as Henry when he left Barcelona's youth ranks to join Arsenal as a 16-year-old in September 2003.

• Thomas Vermaelen was a colleague of Maxwell and Zlatan Ibrahimović at AFC Ajax, playing with the latter from 2001 to 2004 and the former for another two years until 2006.

• William Gallas played in the Chelsea team that eliminated Barcelona from the 2004/05 UEFA Champions League but then lost to them at the same last-16 stage the next season.

• Mikaël Silvestre appeared as a last-minute substitute for former club Manchester United in their 2008 semi-final win against Barcelona at Old Trafford.

• Andrei Arshavin was in the Russia side beaten 3-0 by Spain in the UEFA EURO 2008 semi-final. Puyol, Xavi Hernández and Iniesta were in the Spain lineup along with Fàbregas.

• Gerard Piqué played once against Arsenal during his four years at Manchester United from 2004 to 2008. That appearance, in a 2-1 United win at Old Trafford in April 2008, was his last for the club.

• Seydou Keita scored the opening goal for Sevilla FC when they beat Arsenal 3-1 in the UEFA Champions League group stage in November 2007. Daniel Alves also played for Sevilla that night and the future Barcelona pair were involved too in Sevilla's 3-0 reverse at Arsenal two months earlier.

• Carlos Vela is a team-mate of Rafael Márquez with Mexico.

• The second leg takes place on 6 April. The victors will take on the winner of the quarter-final between FC Internazionale Milano and PFC CSKA Moskva in the semi-finals.