Brendan Rodgers knows it will be a special moment for Kopites when Liverpool take to the field to play their first Champions League tie on the road for five years at St. Jakob-Park tonight.

Budapest's Ferenc Puskas Stadium was the setting, in November 2009, when the Reds last featured away from home in Europe's elite competition - and David N'Gog was the hero as Debrecen VSC were edged 1-0.

Since that night - and the team's subsequent elimination from the Champions League at the hands of Fiorentina two weeks later - Liverpool have been forced to watch their fiercest rivals tour the continent to tackle its finest teams on foreign turf.

All that will end tonight, however, when FC Basel, the reigning Swiss champions host the Reds, with Rodgers' charges aiming to maintain a winning start to their Group B campaign, having already beaten Ludogorets Razgrad 2-1 at Anfield.

"We've waited so many years for games such as these," Rodgers told Liverpoolfc.com. "So now that we're here, we want to go out and express ourselves and look to go and get the three points.

"It will be a tough game for us. They're regular performers in the Champions League, so they know the level, they know the experiences and we've seen that they are a very good side.

"They are the top team in Switzerland and I think it's going to be a tough game. We're really relishing and looking forward to it.

"In the Real Madrid game [a 5-1 defeat at the Santiago Bernabeu] Basel should have scored more than one goal. They were good in attack and they scored a good goal in the game."

Rodgers was given a first-hand glimpse of tonight's opponents, who have beaten Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham in recent years, when he attended one of their Champions League encounters last season - and the manager is under no illusions as to the threat they can pose.

"Basel play some very good football and they have some technically gifted players," said the Northern Irishman. "They play 3-5-1-1 or 4-2-3-1, so they're very technically gifted.

"They have quick players and they have their captain, Marco Streller, who is someone that scores goals regularly. So I think we've seen enough of them.

"I've seen them enough - I went to watch them live in Schalke last year. They were unfortunate not to come through the group stages last season, so we expect a tough game."

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