Napoli and Bayern face ghosts from the past

Group A leaders FC Bayern München face their nemesis from last season's UEFA Champions League when they visit SSC Napoli on matchday three.

• It was Napoli's Goran Pandev who scored the goal that eliminated Bayern in the last 16 in March, his 88th-minute strike earning former club FC Internazionale Milano an away-goals victory, although a thigh strain is likely to rule out the striker on matchday three.

• Including their 2010 UEFA Champions League final defeat by Inter in which Pandev also played, this is Bayern's 12th meeting with Italian opposition in four seasons and they should travel to Naples in good heart after successive wins against Villarreal CF and Manchester City FC.

• Second-placed Napoli have cause for optimism too after beating Villarreal last time out, though they have had mixed fortunes in the past against Jupp Heynckes' teams.

Previous meetings
• Heynckes was in his first spell as Bayern coach when the clubs met in the 1988/89 UEFA Cup semi-finals, Napoli taking a 2-0 advantage in the first leg with Careca and Andrea Carnevale scoring. Careca struck twice more in the 2-2 return in Germany, Roland Wohlfarth and Stefan Reuter replying for Bayern. Napoli beat VfB Stuttgart in the subsequent final to claim their first European trophy.

Match background
• Napoli are defending an impressive home record in Europe. Since returning to continental competition after 13 years in 2008, they are unbeaten in nine matches and have not conceded a goal in the last six.

• However, the last foreign team to prevail in Naples were their most recent German visitors, an Eintracht Frankfurt side coached by Heynckes who triumphed there in the UEFA Cup third round in December 1994. Heynckes's Eintracht won both ties 1-0 but lost to Juventus in the next round.

• Napoli's overall home record against German clubs is: W3 D0 L3.

• Bayern visited Italy twice in each of the past two seasons. Last term they lost a two-goal lead in a 3-2 defeat by AS Roma in the group stage, then won 1-0 at Inter. In 2009/10 they triumphed 4-1 at Juventus in the group stage and went down 3-2 at ACF Fiorentina in the round of 16, although they still progressed on away goals.

• The Bavarian side's record away to Italian teams is: W5 D2 L9.

Team ties
• For Bayern coach Heynckes this is the first encounter with Italian opponents since steering Real Madrid CF to victory against Juventus in the 1998 UEFA Champions League final. As a coach his record against Serie A clubs is W7 D3 L5; in Italy W3 D0 L4.

• With Bayern, Heynckes' most striking success in Italy was a 3-1 triumph at Inter which overturned a 2-0 home loss in the 1988/89 UEFA Cup third round – the campaign that ended with elimination by Napoli. The next season he suffered a European Champion Clubs' Cup semi-final loss to AC Milan.

• Heynckes was in the Hannover 96 side beaten 4-0 at Napoli in the 1967/68 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup first round first leg, although that competition was not a UEFA tournament.

• Manuel Neuer was in the FC Schalke 04 team that knocked out Pandev's Inter in the last eight of last season's competition.

• Arjen Robben scored for the Netherlands in victories over Marek Hamšík's Slovakia, and Edinson Cavani and Walter Gargano's Uruguay at the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In the third-place play-off in South Africa, the Uruguayan pair faced a Germany side including Jörg Butt, Jérôme Boateng, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Thomas Müller and Toni Kroos. Müller and Cavani were among the scorers in Germany's 3-2 success.

• Cavani and Gargano helped Uruguay beat Anatoliy Tymoshchuk's Ukraine 3-2 in a friendly in September. The previous month, Hamšík helped Slovakia overcome David Alaba's Austria 2-1 in another friendly.

• Gökhan Inler got the better of Tymoshchuk when his Udinese Calcio eliminated then holders FC Zenit St Petersburg from the 2008/09 UEFA Cup.

• Rafinha played for Genoa CFC in Serie A last season, suffering 1-0 defeats home and away by Napoli.

• Diego Contento's family are from Naples and he was named after Napoli old boy Diego Maradona.