Anderlecht daunted by Hamburg task

RSC Anderlecht have it all to do if they are to reach the UEFA Europa League quarter-finals following a 3-1 defeat in the away leg of their round of 16 tie against Hamburger SV.

• Goals from Joris Mathijsen (23) and Ruud van Nistelrooy (40) put Anderlecht on the back foot, and while Jonathan Legear scored an away goal on the stroke of half-time, David Jarolím restored Hamburg's two-goal lead after the break.

Previous meetings
• Before last week's first leg the clubs had faced each other three times in total, all of those games coming in the space of six months in 1977 as Hamburg and Anderlecht each recorded a victory apiece and one draw.

• They first met in the 1977 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final in Amsterdam, when Kuno Klötzer's Hamburg overcame Raymond Goethals' Anderlecht 2-0 to land their first major European trophy.

• The teams for that game at the Olympisch Stadium on 11 May 1977 were:
Hamburg: Kargus, Kaltz, Nogly, Memering, Hidien, Ripp, Steffenhagen, Keller, Reimann, Magath, Volkert.
Anderlecht: Ruiter, Van Binst, Broos, Vandendaele, Thissen, Dockx (Van Poucke, 80), Van Der Elst, Haan, Ressel, Coeck, Rensenbrink.

• Goethals' Anderlecht avenged that defeat in the second round of the same competition the following season, beating a Hamburg team then coached by Rudi Gutendorf 2-1 in Germany and drawing the return leg 1-1 in Brussels.

Match background
• Anderlecht have met Bundesliga opposition 30 times and their record reads W11 D3 L16; in Brussels, W7 D3 L4. Prior to a 2-1 second-leg win at FC Bayern München in the 2007/08 UEFA Cup round of 16 – a tie they lost 6-2 on aggregate – they had not won in ten games against German sides.

• Hamburg have six past matches against Belgian opponents in UEFA club competition, earning themselves the record W2 D2 L2; W0 D1 L1 in Belgium. They also faced KAA Gent in the 1970/71 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the non-UEFA affiliated predecessor of the UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League, winning 1-0 in Belgium and 7-1 at home.

• Anderlecht's six home European games this season give them the record W3 D1 L2, while Hamburg have won three and lost three of their six UEFA Europa League away games this season.

Team facts
• Van Nistelrooy had never faced Anderlecht prior to the first leg but has come up against Belgium in three friendly games with the Netherlands, featuring in a loss and two draws.

• Zé Roberto played for Bayern in both of their 2003/04 UEFA Champions League group-stage meetings with Anderlecht, a 1-0 home win and a 1-1 draw in Brussels. Piotr Trochowski was an unused substitute during the match in Belgium.

• David Rozehnal won the league title and a Belgian Cup with Club Brugge KV between 2003 and 2005.

• Jelle Van Damme spent part of the 2005/06 season on loan at Werder Bremen prior to joining his current employers from Southampton FC.

• Jan Polák also moved to Brussels following a spell in the Bundesliga, where he represented 1. FC Nürnberg from 2005 to 2007.

• Final hosts Hamburg are one of three German sides in the last 16, along with VfL Wolfsburg and Bremen. The Bundesliga boasts the most UEFA Europa League contenders at this stage. Anderlecht are one of two Belgian sides left in the competition, along with R. Standard de Liège.

• The draw for the quarter-finals and semi-finals will be staged at UEFA's headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, on Friday 19 March. There is no country protection.

Penalties
• Both of Anderlecht's previous UEFA club competition penalty shoot-outs ended in defeat; 4-1 at FC Barcelona in the 1978/79 UEFA Cup and 4-3 to Tottenham Hotspur FC in the 1983/84 UEFA Cup final.

• Hamburg lost their only European penalty shoot-out 4-3 on home turf to Sparta Rotterdam following a 2-2 aggregate draw in the 1985/86 UEFA Cup first round.