Time for Marseille and Žilina to produce

The prospects of Olympique de Marseille and MŠK Žilina continuing in the UEFA Champions League beyond the group stage do not look promising as they meet at Stade Vélodrome with neither side having secured a point in Group F and with only one goal between them from four games.

• Marseille continued their pattern of poor home results in the UEFA Champions League when a late own goal by César Azpilicueta on Matchday 1 gave FC Spartak Moskva their first win on French soil at the 11th attempt. The Ligue 1 champions then travelled to London to face Chelsea FC, losing 2-0.

• Žilina could scarcely have been given a harder opening fixture in their debut group stage campaign than Chelsea FC, who have reached the semi-finals in four of the last six seasons. After a 4-1 home defeat, Tomáš Oravec's second-half strike providing scant consolation, the Slovakian champions then conceded three more goals away to Spartak without managing to find the net themselves.

Previous meetings
• The teams have not met before and this is also the first time that Marseille have faced opponents from Slovakia in a European fixture.

• Žilina have had three contests against French sides, all in the UEFA Intertoto Cup. In the 1995 group stage they lost 5-0 at home to Olympique Lyonnais while two years later they beat FC Metz 2-1 in the first leg of their second-round tie, only to lose 3-0 in the return in the only away game of the three.

Match background
• In each of Marseille's previous four group stage campaigns they have won only one of their three home games, losing six of those 12 matches.

• Žilina came through three qualifying rounds to become the third Slovakian team to reach the UEFA Champions League group stage, after MFK Košice in 1997/98 and FC Artmedia Petržalka eight years later. In the play-off round a 2-0 first-leg win at AC Sparta Praha put Pavel Hapal's side in the ascendancy before a 1-0 home success.

• The Slovakian champions had lost 1-0 at Birkirkara FC in the second qualifying round first leg, winning the return 3-0. In the following stage they drew 1-1 at PFC Litex Lovech before a 3-1 second-leg home win.

• In the 2008/09 UEFA Cup group stage Žilina gained a memorable 2-1 away win at Aston Villa FC, defender Vladimír Leitner scoring one of their goals. That was their only victory in four games, the other away fixture ending in a 1-0 defeat at AFC Ajax. To reach that stage they had come through two qualifying phases as well as the first round. Of those three away games the Slovakian team won two and drew the other.

Team ties
• Tomáš Majtán scored for Slovakia's Under-21 side in a friendly against a French U21 team including Loïc Rémy in August 2008. Majtán's was the opening goal in a 2-2 draw. Patrik Mráz also played for Slovakia.

• Didier Deschamps captained the France team in a EURO '96 qualifier against Slovakia in La Beaujoire in April 1995, setting up one goal for Vincent Guérin in a 4-0 win.