On Sunday, FC Basel and FC Lugano will meet at St. Jakob-Park - and two former team-mates from FC Bayern's youth ranks will be reunited.
FC Basel will host FC Lugano on Sunday and will be looking to keep the in-form Ticino side at bay in the Super League table. The clash at St. Jakob-Park is also the reunion of Basel's Flavius Daniliuc and Lugano's Lukas Mai. The two central defenders once played side by side in FC Bayern's U17s - and have fond memories of their time together. blue Sport spoke to both of them ahead of the reunion.
Mutual memories of their time at Bayern
Flavius Daniliuc: "When I think of Lukas Mai, I think of a top player. He was very disciplined, a sincere person and had a very nice family who were at almost every game. He had a brother who he loved more than anything.
I always looked up to him because I knew he was so much further ahead than I was at the time. Although he was only a year older, he was already a German international and a professional at Bayern and was allowed to join the squad from time to time and train up top. He was a role model for me."
Lukas Mai: "Flavius was already very professional back then. We once talked about nutrition and he said how he ate and behaved - with his 200 push-ups and sit-ups a day. That stayed in my head. You can see from his body that he's done it and it's working. He was a rather quiet guy. He didn't have to put himself in the spotlight. You could always talk to him normally. You could also have fun with him.
Back then at Bayern, we had a very cool group, everyone got on and had fun. And when things got serious and we had a game, we all stood our ground and stuck together."
Who was the bigger joker?
Daniliuc: "We were both very focused and disciplined. He was always the one who spoke the most and tried to coach the team. He already had a great standing in the club, you could tell. The coaches also took their cue from him."
Mai: "We're guys who don't want to be in the foreground or attract attention by making jokes. But of course we're there to have fun. If someone makes a joke, we both laugh. But we were both very focused, knew what we were about and wanted to achieve something."
Who was tougher in the duel?
Daniliuc: "Definitely him back then."
Mai: "We're both clever players. I don't think toughness is that important. If you're clever against your opponent, you win more tackles than if you just crash in rigorously."
Who had to clean up more material?
Daniliuc: "It was definitely more my turn. You had to carry the balls in and out, carry the goals and if you lost a bet, you had to clean someone's shoes."
Mai: "In Germany, there's a rule that the younger players have to do more than the older ones. It's about collecting the balls after training, carrying goals, collecting poles - little things. But of course we helped out from time to time."
