Bordeaux braced for summit meeting

FC Girondins de Bordeaux and FC Bayern München will contest top spot in Group A when they meet on Matchday 3. Level on four points apiece, victory would mark a significant step towards reaching the knockout phase.

Previous meetings
• The teams' only previous encounter came in the 1995/96 UEFA Cup final. Bordeaux's campaign had started out in the UEFA Intertoto Cup but their epic journey had no happy ending as Bayern ran out convincing winners.

• The Bavarian side won the first leg in Germany 2-0 on 1 May 1996, Thomas Helmer and Mehmet Scholl firing the goals.

• They prevailed 3-1 in the return a fortnight later. Goals from Scholl and Emil Kostadinov killed off the contest and although Daniel Dutuel pulled a goal back, Jürgen Klinsmann sealed a 5-1 aggregate victory for the German side.

• The victorious Bayern coach was Franz Beckenbauer, now chairman of the club's supervisory board. Bordeaux's beaten coach, meanwhile, was former Bayern player Gernot Rohr.

• Frenchman Jean-Pierre Papin appeared for the Bavarian club in the first leg and subsequently signed for Bordeaux, spending the following two seasons at the Stade Chaban-Delmas. Bordeaux's team included Bixente Lizarazu, a future Bayern player and UEFA Champions League winner with the Bundesliga outfit in 2000/01.

Match background
• Having opened their account with a 1-1 draw at Juventus, Bordeaux's 1-0 win against Maccabi Haifa FC on Matchday 2 extended their unbeaten run at home in Europe to four matches.

• The Ligue 1 club's last home fixture against German opponents yielded a 4-1 victory over Werder Bremen in the third round of the 2000/01 UEFA Cup. Ulrich Ramé is the only survivor of that Bordeaux team.

• Including their 3-0 opening-day victory at Haifa, Bayern have won six of their last eleven away games and lost just twice.

• Bayern beat Olympique Lyonnais 3-2 in last season's group stage. The German team won the match through first-half goals from Miroslav Klose (11, 37) and Franck Ribéry (34).

• Bayern have avoided defeat on their last four visits to France and won their third European Champion Clubs' Cup title at the expense of French opposition when they defeated AS Saint-Etienne 1-0 in Glasgow in May 1976.

Team ties
• Bordeaux coach Laurent Blanc played against Bayern in the UEFA Champions League for Manchester United FC, drawing home (0-0) and away (1-1) in the 2001/02 second group stage.

• In that same campaign, he suffered the disappointment of a semi-final defeat in Germany as United lost on away goals to Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

• Previously, Blanc had enjoyed UEFA Cup victories over Werder Bremen (1998/99 second round) and Hertha BSC Berlin (2000/01 third round) with Olympique de Marseille and FC Internazionale Milano respectively.

• Bayern coach Louis van Gaal faced AJ Auxerre in the 1996/97 UEFA Champions League group stage while at AFC Ajax. He had mixed fortunes, overseeing a 1-0 win in France and a 2-1 home defeat.

• Bordeaux midfielder Alou Diarra spent two seasons at Bayern from 2000 to 2002. He turned out alongside Philipp Lahm, Christian Lell, Michael Rensing and Bastian Schweinsteiger for the reserves but did not play a first-team appearance before moving on to Liverpool FC.

• Diarra played alongside Ribéry as France lost the 2006 FIFA World Cup final to an Italy side featuring Bayern striker Luca Toni.

• Ribéry was a team-mate of Bordeaux's Cédric Carasso for two seasons at Marseille from 2005 to 2007. Ribéry failed to score in five appearances against Bordeaux.

• Bordeaux midfielder Yoann Gourcuff featured as a substitute in both legs of AC Milan's 2006/07 UEFA Champions League quarter-final victory over Bayern.

• In October 2007, the hosts' Czech international Jaroslav Plašil scored in a 3-0 win against Germany at the Fußball Arena München that secured his country's qualification for UEFA EURO 2008™. Bayern's Mario Gómez and Bastian Schweinsteiger appeared for the hosts.

• Bordeaux defender Diego Placente spent four-and-a-half years in Germany with Leverkusen before leaving in 2005. In nine league and cup games against Bayern he tasted victory once, losing six.

• Bayern's Arjen Robben struck his first ever UEFA Champions League goal for PSV Eindhoven against Auxerre in a 3-0 home win on 30 October 2002. More recently, he scored in the Netherlands' 4-1 defeat of France in the group stage at UEFA EURO 2008™.