Valencia look to scale Group F summit

Valencia CF still have first place in Group F in their sights but to climb to the top they will have to achieve a better result at LOSC Lille than section leaders FC Bayern München manage at home to FC BATE Borisov.

• A 1-1 home draw with Bayern last time out left both sides on ten points but the German side hold the edge on head-to-head record. Sofiane Feghouli's late strike gave Valencia, reduced to ten men by Antonio Barragán's first-half red card, the lead but Thomas Müller swiftly levelled.

• On the same night LOSC ran out 2-0 winners at BATE with first UEFA Champions League goals for Djibril Sidibé – who was later sent off – and Gianni Bruno. It gave the French side's their first points of the campaign but was not enough to prevent a fourth-place finish for Rudi Garcia's side.

• Valencia parted company with coach Mauricio Pellegrino on 1 December, appointing Ernesto Valverde until the end of the season two days later with Salvador González 'Voro' taking charge of the team at LOSC.

• The matchday two meeting between these teams brought Valencia their first win of the campaign thanks to a Jonas goal in each half, LOSC losing Mathieu Debuchy to a late red card.

• LOSC's two games at their new Grand Stade Lille Métropole home also ended in defeat as they lost 3-1 to BATE in the opening set of fixtures, before Bayern won by the only goal on 23 October. A 6-1 defeat in Munich in the return contest on matchday four represented LOSC's heaviest European defeat.

• Valencia had also lost in Germany, 2-1 on matchday one, but won their other away fixture at BATE 3-0.

Previous meetings
• The clubs met in the 2009/10 UEFA Europa League group stage, the game in France ending 1-1. There were two late goals in that fixture, both from substitutes. Juan Mata (78) put the visitors ahead before Gervinho equalised with four minutes remaining.

• The lineups on 17 September 2009 were:
LOSC: Butelle, Balmont (Mavuba 77), Obraniak, Aubameyang (Frau 64), Vittek (Gervinho 69) Emerson, Béria, Chedjou, Rami, Hazard, Dumont.
Valencia: Sánchez, Bruno Saltor, Maduro, D Navarro, Albelda, Žigić (Villa 82), Miku (Banega 67), Joaquín, Mathieu, Jordi Alba (Mata 77), Míchel.

• Valencia won the return 3-1, Joaquín scoring twice in the first half and Mata adding a third before Aurélien Chedjou pulled one back in added time.

• LOSC have won two and drawn three of their five European games at home to Spanish teams.

• The game on 2 October extended Valencia's remarkable record against French sides: they have now gone 16 games, home and away, unbeaten since their first meeting, the opening leg of the 1979/80 European Cup Winners' Cup semi-final when FC Nantes beat them 2-1 in France.

Match background
• A 1-0 first-leg defeat at FC København in the play-offs means LOSC have lost five of their seven UEFA Champions League games this season, winning the other two.

Team ties
• Adil Rami was a LOSC player from 2006/07 to 2010/11 and a key player in their historic double in his last season there before he was sold to Valencia. He scored seven goals in 129 top-flight appearances.

• Aly Cissokho (Olympique Lyonnais), Jérémy Mathieu (FC Sochaux-Montbéliard & Toulouse FC), Tino Costa (Montpellier Hérault SC) and Feghouli (Grenoble Foot 38) have all played in France.

• Cissokho, Mathieu, Rami, Debuchy, Mickaël Landreau, Marvin Martin, Rio Mavuba, Dimitri Payet and Benoît Pedretti are all French internationals.

• Ricardo Costa spent four months on loan at Les Dogues from VfL Wolfsburg in 2010, scoring one goal in ten Ligue 1 appearances.

• Mavuba spent the first half of 2007/08 at Villarreal CF and made the last of his five Liga appearances for the Yellow Submarine in a 3-0 home win against Valencia before moving to LOSC, initially on loan.

• During his six seasons at Chelsea FC, Salomon Kalou was never on the losing side in five UEFA Champions League appearances against Valencia.