Basel face a hard test in the Champions’ League tonight: Sporting Lisbon

Aalborg, Cluj, BATE and Anorthosis have all gathered at least one point. Together with FC Basel this quintet is pictured as being the true “underdogs” in the competition this year. The only thing is that the Swiss Champions have lost the opening game to Shakhtar and will risk conceding a second consecutive defeat at Lisbon tonight, against Sporting.

The two teams had already met in last year’s UEFA Cup clash; the Portuguese largely dominating both legs with a 5-0 aggregate score. Basel’s only hope is that they will repeat the feat of defeating another Portuguese team following the 3rd round win against Vitoria Guimaraes in August.

Basel’s weekend defeat to Young Boys (the second defeat in this season, following the away game at Sion) is comparable to the woes of the Portuguese team who have lost the opening game to Barcelona and the derby to Benfica with a 2-0 score. Both teams will be looking to win this game and forget the negative period they are going through.

Basel’s coach Gross said: “I want my players to make the best out of every moment tomorrow. I’m afraid that in the near future it will be harder for a Swiss team to qualify for the group stage.
We’ll have make quite of an achievement. Belief, courage, trust and pride: this is what I’ll ask my players. Sporting will try to kill the game from the start. Our objective will be to resist and start building our game on the flanks.”

Derdiyok being still injured, Gross will grant the pivotal role to a convalescent Streller. Following the latter’s injury at Euro 2008 we haven’t seen much of him other than the second half against Young Boys. This might be the weakness of Basel’s starting lineup but Gross doesn’t really have many options, does he? Other than this, Stocker and Marque will not play. Gross has given the former a break from competition and the latter is injured.

Sporting can show off 18 Portuguese titles, 15 Cups, 7 Super Cups and one Cup Winner’s Cup. They are famous for their youth system and the great stars that began their career in this team: Eusebio, Cristiano Ronaldo, Simao Sabrosa, Luis Figo, Ricardo Quaresma, Hugo Viana and Nani.

Even nowadays Sporting has a very competitive team; the most dangerous names being: Anderson Polga, Izmailov, Vukcevic, Derlei, Helder Postiga, Miguel Veloso, Joao Moutinho and Rochemback.

It’s certainly going to be a very complicated task for Basel – a draw would suffice although a win would radically change the global picture. However, a defeat, with two games against Barcelona coming up would probably mean the end of all hope.

Tonight’s referee will be the Italian Nicola Rizzoli who was also there when Basel defeated Rennes in last year’s UEFA Cup.

Unfortunately, two-thirds of Swiss internet users don’t believe in Basel’s chance according to a recent survey by 20min.ch

Possible Lineups:
Sporting Lisbon: Rui Patricio; Abel, Tonel, Polga, Grimi; Rochemback, Miguel Veloso, Vukcevic; João Moutinho; Derlei, Helder Postiga.
FC Basel: Costanzo; Zanni, Abraham, Ferati, Safari; Huggel; Carlitos, Gelabert, Eduardo (Ergic), Chipperfield; Streller.

Links for tonight’s game