Debrecen face Anfield baptism of fire

Debreceni VSC will take a step into the unknown when they open their Group E campaign away against Liverpool FC. It will be the Hungarian titleholders' first match in the UEFA Champions League proper after becoming the first team from their country to qualify for the group stage since Ferencvárosi TC in 1995/96.

Match background
• Debrecen won five of their six games in qualifying – including away at FC Levadia Tallinn and PFC Levski Sofia – but they know they face a much tougher test at Anfield, home of the five-times European champions.

• Quarter-finalists in the UEFA Champions League last season, Liverpool are competing in their sixth successive group-stage campaign and not once have they failed to reach the last 16.

• Rafael Benítez's side lost just one of 12 matches in the 2008/09 competition – at home to Chelsea FC in the last eight – and will be determined to make a winning start.

• For Debrecen this is the second time they have visited England and they will hope to fare better than the previous occasion when they lost 3-0 to Manchester United FC in a third qualifying round tie in August 2005 – the first instalment of a 6-0 aggregate defeat.

• There are four survivors in Debrecen's squad from that last visit to north-west England: Tibor Dombi played while Csaba Bernáth, Zoltán Kiss and Ádám Komlósi were on the bench. Kiss and Dombi featured in the return.

• Liverpool have had mixed fortunes against Hungarian opposition in the past, beating Budapest Honvéd FC 2-0 at Anfield to set up an identical aggregate success in the 1965/66 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup quarter-finals.

• In the second round of the same competition in 1974/75, Liverpool conceded an 89th-minute equaliser to Ferencváros's János Maté and paid the price for that 1-1 draw as an ensuing stalemate in Budapest saw them eliminated on away goals.

• That Liverpool defeat was one of only three that English sides have suffered in 15 two-legged contests against Hungarian opposition.

Team ties
• Debrecen may be new to the UEFA Champions League but Läszló Bodnar has previously faced Liverpool in the competition. Bodnar was on the bench for former club FC Dynamo Kyiv's 1-0 defeat at Anfield in September 2001 and then played the first 56 minutes as Liverpool won 2-1 in Kiev the following month.

• Liverpool midfielder Yossi Benayoun scored his first international goal at any level for Israel's Under-16 side against Hungary, securing a 1-0 home win for his team on 20 September 1995.