Bordeaux hunt repeat as they host Club Brugge

FC Girondins de Bordeaux start their UEFA Europa League Group D campaign unbeaten in nine European home games, hoping for a repeat of the outcome when they first faced Club Brugge KV in a European tie.

Previous meetings
• The clubs' only previous encounters came in the fourth round of the 2003/04 UEFA Cup, where Michel Pavon's Bordeaux beat Trond Sollied's Club Brugge 4-1 on aggregate, en route to elimination in the quarter-finals by eventual winners Valencia CF.

• The teams for their first meeting, a 3-1 home win for Bordeaux on 11 March 2004, were:
Bordeaux: Ramé, Jemmali (Basto 46), Marco Caneira, Jurietti, Eduardo Costa, Celades, Riera, Feindouno, Planus*, Chamakh, Mavuba.
Club Brugge: Verlinden, Simons, Rozenhal, Van Der Heyden, Clement, Verheyen, Čeh (Smolders 84), Gvozdenović, Andrés Mendoza (Sæternes 84), Lange (Victor Simões 73), Maertens.

• The lineups for the return fixture, which Bordeaux won 1-0, a fortnight later were:
Club Brugge: Verlinden, De Cock, Simons, Rozenhal, Van Der Heyden, Clement, Verheyen, Sæternes, Lange (Gvozdenović 68), Smolders, Blondel* (Andrés Mendoza 68).
Bordeaux: Ramé, Jemmali, Marco Caneira, Jurietti, Eduardo Costa (Paulo Miranda 68), Celades, Riera (Basto 88), Planus*, Chamakh, Mavuba, Francia.
* Registered to play for the club in the 2012/13 UEFA Europa League group stage.

Match background
• Including their previous meetings with Club Brugge, Bordeaux's record in ten games against Belgian sides is W5 D3 L2 (W3 D1 L1 at home – W2 D2 L1 in Belgium).

• Club Brugge's 17 matches against French clubs have ended W6 D2 L9 (W5 D1 L3 at home – W1 D1 L6 in France). They have yet to lose in three games against French teams in the UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League group stage, recording a win and two draws.

• Bordeaux are kicking off their second UEFA Europa League group stage campaign, having made it through in their only previous appearance in 2006/07.

• Bordeaux have not lost in nine European home games (seven wins and two draws) since a 3-1 defeat by AS Roma in the UEFA Champions League group stage on 1 October 2008. They are on a six-match continental winning streak at the Stade Chaban-Delmas coming into this game.

• This is Club Brugge's seventh tilt at this group stage – and their fifth in succession – but they have only twice made it through, in 2009/10 and last season.

• Club Brugge have lost only once in their last seven European away games (2-1 at Hannover 96 in last season's round of 32), recording three wins and three draws in that spell.

Team facts
• Bordeaux's Brazilian attacker Jussiê turns 29 on the eve of the match.

• Celebrated France striker Jean-Pierre Papin played for both clubs: he won the 1985/86 Belgian Cup in his only season with Club Brugge, then represented Bordeaux from 1996-98.

• Bordeaux coach Francis Gillot was a defender who spent the bulk of his playing career at RC Lens. He coached at the FC Sochaux-Montbéliard academy before returning to Lens to take joint-charge and then sole command of the first team in 2004. Subsequent spells with Sochaux and (since 2011) Bordeaux have cemented his reputation as a straight-talking coach with a penchant for attacking football.

• Twice coach of Belgium, Club Brugge boss Georges Leekens represented the Bruges side as a defender from 1972-81, winning five titles. He then scooped a sixth crown – and indeed a second Belgian Cup – as the club's coach in the early 1990s. Leekens has coached most of Belgium's top clubs, as well as Trabzonspor AŞ in Turkey and Roda JC in the Netherlands.