Stuttgart coach Gross reunited with Young Boys

VfB Stuttgart coach Christian Gross should know what to expect from BSC Young Boys in the sides' opening Group H game, with the German side boasting a great record against clubs from Switzerland.

Previous meetings
• The teams are meeting for the first time in UEFA club competition.

• Stuttgart's record in six games against Swiss sides is an impressive W6 D0 L0 (W3 D0 L0 at home). Those fixtures have left them with the aggregate score of 22-5, meaning they have averaged well over three goals a game.

• Young Boys' nine games against clubs from Germany have ended W1 D5 L3 (W0 D3 L1 away). That sole win was a 2-1 success against FC Wismut Aue in a 1958/59 European Champion Clubs' Cup quarter-final replay staged on neutral territory in Amsterdam, in which the Berne club were the nominal home side.

Match background
• Back in the UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League group stage for a fourth time, Stuttgart's six group phase home games to date have produced five wins and one loss – 2-0 to FC Shakhtar Donetsk in the 2005/06 edition.

• This is Young Boys' first game in the group stage of a major UEFA club competition.

• Young Boys' last five European away games have produced three wins and two defeats, most recently a 4-0 UEFA Champions League play-off round loss at Tottenham Hotspur FC – one of Stuttgart coach Gross's old clubs.

Team facts
• Gross will have a good idea of what to expect from Young Boys. As a player, the Zurich-born defender represented the likes of Grasshopper-Club, FC Lausanne-Sport, Neuchâtel Xamax FC and VfL Bochum 1848. He won six Swiss titles and five cups in spells as coach of Grasshoppers and FC Basel 1893 either side of his nine-month stint at Spurs from November 1997 until early the following season, and joined Stuttgart in December 2009.

• Young Boys' Sarajevo-born coach Vladimir Petković was a midfielder for FK Sarajevo as well as a number of Swiss clubs. As a coach, he worked his way up from assistant at AC Bellinzona to lead AC Lugano, then Bellinzona before taking charge of Young Boys in 2008.

• The two coaches met in the 2008 Swiss Cup final, with Gross's Basel coming through as 4-1 winners against Petković's Bellinzona, though it was 1-1 after 56 minutes.

• Young Boys midfielder David Degen played under Gross at Basel.

• His brother and former Basel team-mate Philipp Degen is in Gross's Stuttgart squad.