Club Profile: FC Basel

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Formed: 1893
Nickname: Bebbi (Local slang for Basel)
Stadium: St. Jakob-Park (capacity: 38,512)

UEFA club competition honours (runners-up in brackets)
• none

Domestic honours (most recent triumph in brackets)
• League title: 15 (2012)
• Swiss Cup: 11 (2012)

History
• On 12 November 1893, an advertisement appeared in the Basler newspaper looking for members for a local football club; the 11 men who responded, most of them athletes, met three days later in a local restaurant. The newly formed Basel played their first game just 11 days later.

• It took 40 years for the club to win its first trophy, but Basel did so in some style, beating holders Grasshopper-Club 4-3 in the 1933 Swiss Cup final, reckoned to be one of the best in the competition’s history. Further cup successes followed in 1947 and 1963.

• Basel won their first league title under club legend René Bader in 1953, but their first golden age came under Helmut Benthaus, who between 1965 and 1982 – when he left for VfB Stuttgart – led the club to seven league titles and two more Swiss Cups, as well as European victories against the likes of FC Spartak Moskva and Club Brugge KV.

• Basel’s fortunes took a turn for the worse with relegation in 1988, and it was not until 1994 that they returned to the top flight. Christian Gross took over as coach in the summer of 1999, and with the new St-Jakob Park opening in 2001, Basel began to hit top gear again, with titles in 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2008 as well as four more cups.

• Domestic success brought more engagement in Europe, with UEFA Champions League group stage campaigns and, in 2005/06, a trip to the UEFA Cup quarter-finals. Gross left for Stuttgart in 2009, but successor Thorsten Fink showed his class, winning a domestic double in his first campaign, before defending the Super League title in both 2011 and 2012.

Club records
Most appearances: Karl Odermatt (407)
Most goals: Seppe Hügi (244)
Record victories: 10-0 on five occasions, most recently at SC Zug (Swiss Cup, 4 September 1993)
Record defeat: Neuchâtel Xamax FC 9-1 FC Basel 1893 (Swiss Championship, 15 August 1987)