Maccabi Tel-Aviv set out Stoke stall

Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC will look to lift themselves off the foot of UEFA Europa League Group E against a Stoke City FC side on a nine-game unbeaten run in continental competition. Previous meetings • Stoke won 3-0 as the sides met for the first time in UEFA competition on matchday three. The two clubs had never played a team from their opponents' country before. • Kenwyne Jones (12), Cameron Jerome (24) and Ryan Shotton (32) scored the goals before Stoke scorer Jerome (43) and Maccabi's Yoav Ziv (55) were sent off. • The three-goal margin matches Stoke's previous best result in UEFA competition, a 4-1 home win against FC Thun in this season's UEFA Europa League play-offs. • In 13 UEFA games between English and Israeli teams, the English have the record W8 D3 L2. No Israeli outfit has beaten an English side 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 Maccabi Haifa with Liverpool FC in the 2006/07 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round. The Reds won 2-1 at home and drew 1-1 in the away game – staged in Kyiv – with Crouch giving Liverpool the lead that night. Match background • Maccabi are unbeaten in 12 UEFA home games (eight wins and four draws) since a 1-0 defeat by FC Bayern München in the 2004/05 UEFA Champions League group stage. Prior to matchday two's draw against FC Dynamo Kyiv, they had won their last six UEFA games at Bloomfield. • Stoke are unbeaten in four European away games and nine matches in total – recording six wins and three draws – since going down 4-0 at 1. FC Kaiserslautern on 27 September 1972. England FIFA World Cup winners Geoff Hurst and Gordon Banks featured in that UEFA Cup first round tie. Team facts • Stoke's first goal on matchday three was the 50th Maccabi had conceded in the UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League. This is their 38th game in the two competitions. • Stoke goalkeeper Asmir Begovi? 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 (1986-88). He was coach of Israel's Under-17 and then U21 teams before taking charge of his old side in 2011.