Basel have score to settle as Schalke visit

FC Basel 1893 take on FC Schalke 04 on matchday two of the UEFA Champions League needing no reminders of the last time they faced German opposition.

• The Swiss side suffered a 7-0 reverse against FC Bayern München in the 2011/12 UEFA Champions League round of 16 second leg, their biggest defeat in UEFA competition belying a 1-0 home win in the first game.

• Basel go into this Group E contest buoyed by a surprise 2-1 win at Chelsea FC on matchday one, although opponents Schalke also have three points to their name having beaten FC Steaua Bucureşti 3-0 in Gelsenkirchen first time out.

Previous meetings
• The sides met in the 2004/05 UEFA Cup group stage, drawing 1-1 in Gelsenkirchen on 21 October 2004. Basel subsitute Matías Delgado scored a late free-kick to earn a point for the visitors, who also included the Degen brothers. Levan Kobiashvili had put the home team ahead.

• The teams were:
Schalke: Rost, Kobiashvili, Pander, Oude-Kamphuis, Krstajić, Bordon, Hamit Altıntop (Varela 68), Poulsen, Asamoah, Lincoln (Aílton 87), Sand (Hanke 87).
Basel: Zuberbühler, P Degen, Smiljanić, Zwyssig, D Degen, Huggel, Chipperfield (Sterjovski 65), Giménez (Carignano 84), Kléber, Rossi (Delgado 65), Petrić.

• That was the only previous time Schalke, group winners in their past two UEFA Champions League participations, have taken on Swiss opposition.

• The victory against Bayern two years ago was only Basel's second home win in six attempts against Bundesliga sides, the other four all ending in defeat. They have played 13 games in all with a record W3 D2 L8.

Match background
• Basel will be hoping to repeat their first home game of two years ago when they beat FC Oţelul Galaţi 2-1. In their other fixtures at St. Jakob-Park they lost 2-0 against SL Benfica and beat Manchester United FC 2-1.

• Last season Basel narrowly failed to become the first Swiss side to make it to the final of a major UEFA club tournament, losing 5-2 on aggregate to Chelsea FC in the UEFA Europa League semi-finals. The 2-1 first-leg reverse ended a six-game unbeaten home run in Europe.

• Basel have won both their home games in this season's competition, defeating Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC 1-0 in the third qualifying round (4-3 on aggregate) and PFC Ludogorets Razgrad 2-0 in the play-offs (6-2 on aggregate).

• Schalke, meanwhile, won 3-2 at PAOK FC in the play-off second leg to progress after a 1-1 home draw. They faced an uphill task when Ádám Szalai's opener in Greece was cancelled out and Jermaine Jones sent off. However, Julian Draxler and Szalai struck second-half goals to steer them through 4-3 on aggregate.

• Schalke were unbeaten in four away games (W2 D2) in last season's competition and have lost just one of their last 11 European away fixtures.

• They began last season's campaign with a 2-1 win at Olympiacos FC and followed that with a 2-0 success at Arsenal FC and a 1-1 draw at Montpellier Hérault SC. In the round of 16 they drew 1-1 at Galatasaray AŞ but then lost 3-2 at home.

Team ties
• Murat Yakin played for VfB Stuttgart between 1997 and 1998, when Timo Hildebrand was with the youth side. Yakin also made nine Bundesliga appearances for 1. FC Kaiserslautern between 2000 and 2001. His only match against Schalke ended 0-0 on 1 November 1997.

• Marco Streller and Hildebrand were Stuttgart team-mates between 2004 and 2007, winning the Bundesliga in 2006/07. Streller went on loan to 1. FC Köln in 2006: in a total of seven games against Schalke his record is W3 D2 L2.

• Giovanni Sio played for VfL Wolfsburg and FC Augsburg between January 2012 and August 2013.

• David Degen played for VfL Borussia Mönchengladbach in 2006/07 while brother Philipp was at Borussia Dortmund between 2005 and 2008 and Stuttgart in 2010/11.

• Substiture Streller scored in Switzerland's 3-1 friendly defeat to Germany on 7 February 2007. David Degen also came on in the second half while Philipp Degen played the full 90 minutes. Hildebrand was on the bench for Germany.

• Kwang-Ryong Pak, a 56th-minute substitute, was sent off in North Korea's 1-0 defeat to Atsuto Uchida's Japan in Saitama in a 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifier on 2 September 2011.

• Christian Fuchs missed a penalty in Austria's 1-0 friendly defeat against Valentin Stocker's Switzerland in Klagenfurt on 11 August 2010.

• Streller scored from the spot in Switzerland's 2-1 friendly defeat by an Austria side including Fuchs in Innsbruck on 11 October 2006.