Fulham need to scale Basel frontier

FC Basel 1893 will be mindful of visiting coach Roy Hodgson's knowledge of Swiss football as Fulham FC come to St. Jakob-Park needing a win to qualify from UEFA Europa League Group E.

• Only victory can send Fulham through while Basel will top the section with a better result than AS Roma can manage at PFC CSKA Sofia. In the event of sides finishing level on points, Basel would finish above Roma on head-to-head, but Fulham would not.

Previous meetings
• Fulham won 1-0 in London when the sides met for the first time on Matchday 2. It was Fulham's first game against a Swiss side. Basel's six home games against English sides have ended W2 D2 L2.

Match background
• Fulham are competing in the group stage of a major UEFA club competition for the first time. Basel contested four consecutive UEFA Cup group phases from 2004/05 to 2007/08, missing the cut only once – in 2006/07.

• Basel have won all five of their European home games this season by a margin of two goals or more, averaging over three goals a game in those fixtures.

• Fulham won 3-0 at FK Vėtra in their first away game of the campaign but have not done so since, earning a draw and two defeats on their travels.

Team facts
• Fulham boss Hodgson has extensive knowledge of Swiss football. After coaching Neuchâtel Xamax FC (1990-92), he took over the national team, leading Switzerland to the 1994 FIFA World Cup finals – their first since 1966 – and guiding them successfully through EURO '96™ qualifying before taking over at FC Internazionale Milano. He later returned to Switzerland to coach Grasshopper-Club (1999/00).

• Former Basel and Switzerland goalkeeper Pascal Zuberbühler has been at Fulham since last summer, although he is not in the club's UEFA Europa League squad list.

• Basel changed coach this summer, with Christian Gross leaving after ten seasons to be replaced by Thorsten Fink, the former FC Bayern München midfielder. Fink started his coaching career with FC Salzburg's amateur side, taking command at Basel following a spell in charge of German lower-league outfit FC Ingolstadt 04.

• Fink played in one UEFA Champions League game in England as a Bayern player, earning a 0-0 draw at Manchester United FC on 13 March 2002.

• He came on ten minutes from the end when Bayern lost 2-1 to United in the 1999 UEFA Champions League final, the English side scoring both their goals in the dying moments.

• Fink played for Bayern when they lost 3-2 to Liverpool FC in the 2001 UEFA Super Cup. Fulham's Danny Murphy came on as a substitute for Liverpool in that game.

• Fulham's Australian goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer was on the winning side when Middlesbrough FC beat Basel in the 2005/06 UEFA Cup quarter-finals, losing 2-0 in Switzerland and going a goal behind in the second leg before fighting back to win 4-1 on the night and 4-3 on aggregate. Züberbuhler was his opposite number in that tie.