Returning Villarreal begin with Bayern test

Villarreal CF get their third taste of the UEFA Champions League when they welcome FC Bayern München to El Madrigal in the first round of Group A games.

• The Spanish club's debut campaign in the competition in 2005/06 wound up with a semi-final defeat by Arsenal FC, the same opponents who ended their second foray in the last eight in 2008/09. Their latest bid begins with a first meeting against four-time European champions Bayern.

• Jupp Heynckes, the visiting manager, has coached three teams in Spain but is still working out a way to better Villarreal, who beat his previous club, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, twice in last season's UEFA Europa League.

Match background
• Both teams qualified for the competition through the play-offs. Juan Carlos Garrido's Villarreal, fourth in the 2010/11 Spanish Liga, recovered from losing 1-0 to Odense BK with a 3-0 home victory.

• Villarreal's victory against OB was their ninth in a row at home in Europe, after they won eight out of eight en route to last season's UEFA Europa League semi-finals, where they lost on aggregate to FC Porto.

• Bayern finished third in the 2010/11 Bundesliga, beating FC Zürich 3-0 on aggregate in the play-offs. This is their fourth successive group campaign.

• The 1-0 second-leg win in Zurich was Bayern's fifth in their last six UEFA Champions League away games.

• It is ten years since Bayern last won away to Spanish opposition – 1-0 at Real Madrid CF in the 2000/01 semi-finals. The Bavarian side subsequently beat Valencia CF in the final but have since suffered one draw and five losses in Spain, where their overall record reads: W4 D4 L9.

• They also went down 2-0 to FC Internazionale Milano in the UEFA Champions League final at the Santiago Bernabéu in May 2010. Bayern lost to Inter again in last season's round of 16, going out on away goals (1-0 away, 2-3 home).

• Villarreal are unbeaten at home against German opponents – with a record reading W2 D1 L0 – and defeated Heynckes' Leverkusen 2-1 at El Madrigal in last season's UEFA Europa League last 16, completing a 5-3 aggregate success.

• The only two survivors in today's Villarreal squad of the group that former coach Manuel Pellegrini guided to the 2005/06 semi-finals are Gonzalo and Marcos Senna.

Team ties
• Last season's UEFA Europa League defeat maintained Heynckes' unhappy record of having never beaten Spanish opposition in two-legged European ties. His four defeats include a 7-0 reverse at RC Celta de Vigo with SL Benfica in the 1999/2000 UEFA Cup and an incredible 1985/86 UEFA Cup tie with VfL Borussia Mönchengladbach where his side beat Real Madrid 5-1 at home but still lost on away goals.

• Heynckes won the UEFA Champions League in his solitary season at the Madrid helm in 1997/98 and has also had spells at Athletic Club (1992-94 and 2000-03) and CD Tenerife (1996/97). He failed to beat Villarreal in four attempts with Athletic.

• As a Mönchengladbach player, Heynckes hit four goals in a 9-2 aggregate victory against Real Zaragoza in the 1974/75 UEFA Cup, but in the following season's European Cup scored against Madrid yet lost on away goals.

• Giuseppe Rossi hit Italy's equaliser past Manuel Neuer in a 1-1 friendly draw with Germany in Dortmund in February.

• Senna was in the Spain team that defeated a Germany side including Mario Gomez, Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger in the UEFA EURO 2008 final.

• Jérôme Boateng, Toni Kroos and Neuer had joined Gomez, Lahm and Schweinsteiger in the Nationalmannschaft by the time they faced Spain again in the 2010 FIFA World Cup semi-finals. Germany lost 1-0 once more to opponents who fielded Carlos Marchena as a substitute.

• Marchena lined up against Neuer and Rafinha when his Valencia CF side won 1-0 at FC Schalke 04 in the 2007/08 group stage.

• Cristián Zapata was in the Udinese Calcio team that defeated Anatoliy Tymoshchuk's FC Zenit St Petersburg in the 2008/09 UEFA Cup round of 16, ending the Russian side's trophy defence.