Bayern power threatens Napoli prospects

FC Bayern München welcome SSC Napoli looking to strengthen their grip on top spot in Group A.

• The teams' 1-1 draw in Naples on matchday three meant Bayern retained first place, two points above Napoli. Jupp Heynckes' men can guarantee qualification if they defeat their Italian visitors and third-placed Manchester City FC fail to beat Villarreal CF.

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
• Bayern have won nine of their last ten UEFA Champions League home outings, including 2-0 successes against FC Zürich and Manchester City FC this season. The only blip was their defeat by FC Internazionale Milano in last season's last 16, when an 88th-minute goal by Goran Pandev, now a Napoli player, inflicted a 3-2 loss and elimination on away goals.

• Bayern had mixed fortunes at home against Italian opposition last season, having earlier beaten AS Roma 2-0 in the group stage. Thomas Müller scored at home against both Roma and Inter.

• Including their 2010 UEFA Champions League final reverse against Inter in which Pandev also played, this is Bayern's 13th meeting with Italian opposition in four seasons. The Bavarian club's home record against sides from Italy is W6 D5 L5.

• Napoli are still seeking a first victory in Germany at the seventh attempt. Their most recent trip brought a 1-0 loss against an Eintracht Frankfurt side coached by Heynckes in the UEFA Cup third round in December 1994. Heynckes' Eintracht won both ties 1-0 but lost to Juventus in the next round.

• Napoli's second heaviest defeat in Europe came on German soil – a 5-1 loss at SV Werder Bremen in the 1989/90 UEFA Cup third round.

• The Serie A side's overall away record against German clubs is: W0 D3 L3.

Team ties
• For Bayern coach Heynckes the matches against Napoli are his first encounters with Italian opponents since he steered 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 D4 L5; in Germany W4 D3 L1.

• With Bayern, Heynckes' most striking result against Italian opponents 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 lost a European Champion Clubs' Cup semi-final on away goals against AC Milan despite a 2-1 home victory.

• 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 quarter-finals of last season's competition.

• Arjen Robben scored for the Netherlands in victories against 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 featured as Slovakia overcame David Alaba's Austria 2-1 in another friendly.

• Gökhan Inler got the better of Tymoshchuk when his Udinese Calcio side 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.