Gross faces up to Dinamo demons

FC Basel 1893 coach Christian Gross will have bad memories of a previous tie against Croatian opposition as his side travel to face NK Dinamo Zagreb.

• Dinamo are playing in their first group stage game of the season while Basel won their opener 1-0 at home against Stade Rennais FC thanks to Marco Streller's 55th-minute goal.

• The two sides have never met in European competition.

• Gross has come up against Dinamo before - and it is an experience he is unlikely to remember with much fondness. He was the coach of Swiss side Grasshopper-Club as they met the Croatian club in the first round of the 1997/98 UEFA Cup.

• Grasshoppers looked to have done the hard work in the first leg of the tie, drawing 4-4 in Zagreb, but lost 5-0 at home in the return with a hat-trick from Igor Cvitanović and two goals from Robert Prosinecki.

• That defeat marked his last European game in charge at Grasshoppers before he was hired to manage Tottenham Hotspur FC in England in November 1997.

• In total, five games have been played between Croatian and Swiss clubs in UEFA club compeitition, with the Alpine nation yet to win a single game. Of some reassurance to Basel, the only two of those games played on Croatian soil ended in draws.

• Basel have never come up against Croatian opposition in European competition.

• Basel midfielder Papa Malick Ba celebrates his 27th birthday on 11 November, three days after the game in Zagreb.

• Basel midfielder and team captain Ivan Ergić was born in Sibenik, Croatia, but later moved to Australia. When it came to national team football, he opted to represent Serbia.

• This will be Dinamo's ninth European game this season, having progressed from the first to the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League before moving on to the first round of the UEFA Cup.

• They have lost their last two European home games.

• Basel, meanwhile, have won their last two UEFA club competition away fixtures.

• Rennes are at home against SK Brann in the day's other Group D game.