Degen wants to make history with Basel

Posted Thursday, April 11, 2013 by Foxsports.com

Basel right-back Philipp Degen is hoping to make history with his boyhood club on Thursday by reaching the Europa League semi-finals at the expense of Tottenham.

Last week the Swiss champions pulled off the shock of the round by securing a 2-2 draw at White Hart Lane, making them favourites heading into Thursday's return leg at St Jakob-Park.

Basel go into the match on a run of four successive home Europa League wins and in the knowledge that a place in club history is just 90 minutes away.

FCB have never previously made the semi-finals of a European competition, although Degen insists
confidence rather than nervousness is the overriding emotion.

"We are not at all nervous," the academy graduate said. "We have shown good performances already in Europe this season.

"Everyone knows what they are capable of and there is a lot of anticipation in the team but we are all very focused.

"There is enough experience in the team to know what is at stake. It will be a decisive match to decide if we will go through.

"We could write history for the club, that would be a great success, but there are 90 minutes left.

"We will take on the challenge, everyone will give their best and we are ready for the match tomorrow [Thursday]."

Degen missed the first leg through injury but coach Murat Yakin confirmed he will start on Thursday.
Cabral and Park Joo-ho are also available while Marco Streller has overcome a knock and is able to feature.

"We are happy to be in the quarter-finals and to have achieved a good result in the first leg," coach Yakin said.

"We are well prepared, the team showed last week that we can keep up with top teams and the top English teams.

"It will be an open, balanced match. Everything is possible. Last week we showed surprises are possible. It's 50-50."

Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas believes Emmanuel Adebayor could be the key to helping Spurs pull off an improbable victory which would see the English club move into their first European semi-final in 29 years.

Basel raced into a 2-0 lead inside 35 minutes last week. The Swiss champions then wasted a series of opportunities to effectively kill the quarter-final off, and Adebayor and Gylfi Sigurdsson scored to leave the tie delicately poised.

Adebayor followed up his strike against the Swiss with another well-taken goal against Everton, and, had it not been for the woodwork, his tally would stand at three in his last two.

His recent form is marked improvement on that which he displayed at the start of the season. After signing a permanent deal at White Hart Lane, Adebayor struggled to break in to the team, and he then drew the ire of the Spurs fans by delaying his return from the African Nations Cup even though he was Villas-Boas' only fit striker.

Villas-Boas admitted he was struggling to "unlock" the former Arsenal frontman's potential two months ago but, after watching him salvage two draws within the space of four days, he is upbeat about the 29-year-old's progress.

"Adebayor has got back in the goals in our recent games and he has shown how influential he can be," the Tottenham manager said.

"He's a player who is really enjoying his football; he is driven by his last goals and last performance and he is doing extremely well.

"Finding the back of the net allows him to go into the game with more confidence and I always think it's self-belief from the player, rather than anything else, that helps them improve.

"His link-up play has improved tremendously. He's been much more involved in the build of play and assisted and created so much, allowing others to flourish. He has helped Aaron Lennon and Gareth Bale improve their game."

Spurs will be more reliant than ever on Adebayor on Thursday as star trio Bale, Lennon and Jermain Defoe are all out through injury.