Basel and Bayern Munich have plenty of interesting ties between them, which should guarantee us two very entertaining clashes.

Basel boss Heiko Vogel coached almost half of Bayern’s current squad during his time as youth coach at Alianz Arena and he will be glad to see some very familiar faces.

Nevertheless, Vogel will not be doing any favours for his former employers but rather try and use this to his own advantage.

The Swiss champions did brilliantly to pip mighty Manchester United to the place in the knockout stages, beating them 2-1 at home after playing out an entertaining 3-3 draw at Old Trafford.

With Bayern Munich not too convincing at the moment, maybe another shock is in order, and odds of 6.50 (11/2) offered by Bodog on home win could be worth a shot.

The Swiss side are still heavily relying on playmaker Xherdan Shaqiri in the creative department and given that the talented midfielder has already agreed to join Bayern in the summer, it will be interesting to see how he fares against his future employers.

Gilles Yapi Yapo and Valentin Stocker are both available after recovering from injury, but Scott Chipperfield and Philipp Degen are definitely out.

Probable starting line-up (4-4-2): Sommer – Steinhofer, Abraham, Dragovic, Park – Shaqiri, Huggel, Xhaka, F. Frei – A. Frei, Streller.

Bayern Munich proved their credentials by winning their Champions League group in front of Napoli and Manchester City and they were subsequently pitted against one of the weakest opponents in the draw.

The Bavarians are regarded as hot favourites to qualify for the quarter-finals, but their recent performances cannot give them a lot of reason for optimism.

Having won just two of their last five league games, Jupp Heynckes’ side slipped to third place in the Bundesliga standings and they no longer look the most likely candidates for the league title.

Following the poor display against bottom-placed Freiburg, Bayern could find it hard to produce a convincing performance against Basel, which means odds of 1.62 (5/8) offered by Ladbrokes on away win are not worth taking.

Bastian Schweinsteiger remains sidelined with an ankle problem, whereas Diego Contento and Daniel Van Buyten are also out.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Neuer – Rafinha, Boateng, Badstuber, Lahm – Gustavo, Alaba – Muller, Kroos, Ribery – Gomez.