Maccabi Tel-Aviv out to scale Stoke fortress
Monday, October 3, 2011
Article summary
Stoke City FC will look to maintain their great home record in UEFA club competition at home against Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC in UEFA Europa League Group E.
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Article body
Stoke City FC will look to maintain their 100% home record in UEFA club competition this season against Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC in UEFA Europa League Group E.
Previous meetings
• The sides are meeting for the first time in UEFA club competition having never met opponents from their opposite numbers' home country before.
• In 12 UEFA games between English and Israeli sides, the English sides have the record W7 D3 L2 (W4 D2 L0 at home). No Israeli club has beaten an English one since 29 October 2002, when Manchester United FC lost 3-0 against Maccabi Haifa FC in a UEFA Champions League game in Nicosia.
• Stoke's Jermaine Pennant and Peter Crouch took on Israeli opponents with Liverpool FC in the 2006/07 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round when they faced Maccabi Haifa. The Reds won 2-1 at home and drew 1-1 in the away game.
Match background
• Stoke have yet to lose in five European home games (four wins and a draw) since they made their continental debut with a 3-1 win against 1. FC Kaiserslautern on 13 September 1972. They have not lost in their last eight European games, home and away; a record that stretches back to their 1973 UEFA Cup defeat by 1. FC Kaiserslautern.
• Maccabi have won only one of their last 13 UEFA away fixtures, beating FK Željezničar 2-0 in UEFA Europa League qualifying this season; 11 of those journeys ended in defeat.
Team facts
• Maccabi are within a goal of conceding their 50th in the UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League. This is their 37th game in the two competitions, having played their first in 1997 against CD Tenerife.
• Stoke goalkeeper Asmir Begović and Maccabi midfielder Haris Medunjanin are international team-mates with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• Stoke's Welsh manager Tony Pulis is making his continental coaching debut this season. Lauded for leading the Potters back into the Premier League, his only previous involvement in European competition came as a youth player. He featured for Wales as a defender in seven International Youth Tournament games in 1975 and 1976.
• Maccabi boss Motti Iwanir spent much of his playing career at the club, leaving Israel only once for a spell with Dutch side Roda JC. He was coach of Israel's Under-17 and then U21 teams before taking charge of his old side in 2011.
