Schalke v Mönchengladbach facts

Five days after meeting for the 100th time, in the Bundesliga, Schalke and Mönchengladbach will contest even higher stakes in the first leg of their UEFA Europa League round of 16 tie.

Previous meetings
• The sides are meeting for the first time in UEFA competition, but are frequent opponents in German football. Ahead of their 4 March meeting, Gladbach had the better of their 99 meetings: W39 D28 L32.

• Schalke lost their only all-German UEFA tie to Magdeburg (then representing East Germany) in the second round of the 1977/78 UEFA Cup, going down 4-2 away and 3-1 at home.

• Gladbach have taken on German opponents in 14 UEFA games with the record W9 D2 L3, including wins in all seven of their home matches.

• There have already been 48 games played between German clubs in UEFA men's senior competition, most recently the 2013 UEFA Champions League final between Dortmund and Bayern.

Form guide
• Schalke are unbeaten at home this season in Europe (W3 D1), a 1-1 draw with PAOK ending a three-game UEFA winning streak at the Arena AufSchalke.

• Gladbach have experienced extreme swings of fortune in their last six European away games (W3 L3), alternating defeats in which they conceded four goals with wins by two-goal margins: 2-4, 3-1, 0-4, 2-0, 0-4, 4-2. Should that pattern continue, they are due to concede four in Gelsenkirchen.

• UEFA Cup winners in 1997, Schalke last reached the quarter-finals in 2011/12, when they lost out to Athletic Club.

• Two-time UEFA Cup winners, Gladbach have made it to the last 16 of the UEFA Europa League for the first time. They have not reached a European quarter-final since losing out to Feyenoord in the 1995/96 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.

Links and trivia
• Gelsenkirchen is around 60km away from Monchengladbach.

• Former team-mates
Yann Sommer (Gladbach) & Breel Embolo (Schalke) – Basel, 2014
Jannick Vestergaard (Gladbach) & Franco Di Santo (Schalke) – Werder Bremen, 2015
Timothée Kolodziejczak (Gladbach) & Yevhen Konoplyanka and Coke (Schalke) – Sevilla, 2015–16

• Gladbach's Brazilian midfielder Raffael played for Schalke – on loan from Dynamo Kyiv – in spring 2013, scoring twice in 16 Bundesliga games.

• Schalke's Klaas-Jan Huntelaar has scored 34 UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League goals, and needs six more to match Henrik Larsson's competition record of 40.

• Gladbach (1975 & 1979) and Schalke (1997), are among four former UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League winners in the round of 16 along with Anderlecht (1983) and Ajax (1992).

• Lars Stindl's 12-minute hat-trick in Gladbach's 4-2 comeback win at Fiorentina in the round of 32 second leg was the second fastest in UEFA Europa League history (a few seconds slower than Claudiu Keşerü for Steaua against AaB in September 2014).

• One of 12 Swedish players still involved in the round of 16, Gladbach's Oscar Wendt is dreaming of playing in the UEFA Europa League final in his nation's capital, Stockholm.

• The round of 16 second leg will be Gladbach's 100th UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League game.

The coaches
• Schalke coach Markus Weinzierl progressed to last season's UEFA Europa League round of 32 with Augsburg, whom he had led since 2012. His playing career peaked when he spent a season with the first-team squad at Bayern München in 1998/99, though he never played a senior match.

• Dieter Hecking took command at Gladbach in December 2016, replacing André Schubert. He started his playing career as a midfielder at the club. He has coached in the Bundesliga with Alemannia Aachen, Hannover, Nürnberg and most recently Wolfsburg, from December 2012 to October 2016.