Ferrara seeks winning start with Juve

A UEFA Champions League winner with Juventus as a player, Ciro Ferrara makes his debut in the competition as coach of the Bianconeri when they welcome FC Girondins de Bordeaux to Turin for their opening Group A fixture.

• Part of the Juventus team that lifted the trophy in 1996, Ferrara will hope to make a winning start against opponents who have never before prevailed on Italian soil. His Bordeaux counterpart, Laurent Blanc, will have other ideas as he looks to get one over his former SSC Napoli team-mate.

Previous meetings
• A quarter of a century has passed since the clubs met in the 1984/85 European Champion Clubs' Cup semi-finals when Juventus prevailed 3-2 on aggregate en route to winning the trophy.

• Juventus gained a 3-0 first-leg lead through goals from Zbigniew Boniek (27), Massimo Briaschi (60) and Michel Platini (62) in Turin but Bordeaux ran them close in the return, narrowing the deficit to a single goal as Dieter Müller (25) and Patrick Battiston (80) found the net.

• Juventus subsequently beat Liverpool FC in the final but for Bordeaux that last-four appearance remains the pinnacle of their European Cup achievement.

• The starting lineups for that first-leg meeting at the Stadio Comunale on 10 April 1985 were:
Juventus: Luciano Bodini, Luciano Favero, Nicola Caricola, Gaetano Scirea, Antonio Cabrini, Massimo Briaschi, Massimo Bonini, Marco Tardelli, Michel Platini, Zbigniew Boniek, Paolo Rossi.
Bordeaux: Dominique Dropsy, Gernot Rohr, Léonard Specht, Patrick Battiston, Thierry Tusseau, Jean Tigana, René Girard, Fernando Chalana, Alain Giresse, Dieter Müller, Bernard Lacombe.

Match background
• Two-time European champions Juventus have recorded eight wins and a draw from nine previous home games against French opponents. Their most recent visitors from Ligue 1 were Stade Rennais FC, whom they defeated 2-0 in a UEFA Intertoto Cup tie in August 1999.

• Juventus reached the first knockout round last term before losing to Chelsea FC. For Bordeaux it is now ten years since they last progressed to the last 16, in their first appearance in the modern UEFA Champions League. They have missed out twice since (2006/07 and 2008/09).

• Bordeaux have never won in Italy, where their record reads two draws and five defeats from seven previous trips. Last season they lost home and away to AS Roma in the UEFA Champions League group stage.

Team ties
• The two coaches, Ferrara and Blanc, were team-mates at Napoli in 1991/92. Blanc had two spells as a player in Italy, later spending two years at FC Internazionale Milano from 1999.

• Blanc played alongside Juventus forward David Trezeguet in the France team that captured the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

• Juventus midfielder Tiago won successive French titles with Olympique Lyonnais in 2006 and 2007.

• Bordeaux's Yoann Gourcuff made 36 Serie A appearances for AC Milan between 2006 and 2008, scoring two goals.

• Bordeaux defender Fernando Menegazzo was based in Italy with Calcio Catania and AC Siena between 2003 and 2005.