Massimo Busacca of Switzerland will take charge of our Champions League qualifying match against Standard de Liège at Anfield.

The 39-year old from Bellinzona is one of the Switzerland's oldest serving FIFA officials despite his age.

His first language is Italian, but he can also talk to the players in English, French, German and Spanish. He has had a rapid rise in the refereeing ranks since first taking charge of an international match back in 2001.

Massimo was Switzerland's representative at the World Cup in Germany in 2006 and in the recent European Championships this summer. He refereed three games each tournament, firstly in the World Cup he was in the middle of Spain against Ukraine, a game that included a goal from our own Xabi Alonso. He then refereed England's 2-2 draw with Sweden in which Steven Gerrard scored, and finally he refereed the Argentina v Mexico game in the first round knock-out stage. In the European Championships he refereed Sweden's 2-0 win against Greece. Then Holland's win over Romania by the same score, and finally Germany's 3-2 win over Turkey in the Semi-Final.

This will be the third time he's refereed Liverpool in European competition, he was in the middle when a single Djibril Cissé goal gave us the points at Anderlecht in October 2005. The following year he refereed our goalless draw at PSV Eindhoven.

Last season he refereed 6 Champions League matches, his best total so far and that included the Semi-Final clash between Manchester United and Barcelona in Spain. This season he may just go that one step further and be in Rome, he already has experienced a European Final having refereed Sevilla's UEFA Cup triumph over Espanyol at Hampden Park in 2007.

As usual all the officials are from the same country, the fourth official is Stephan Studar and his assistants are Matthias Arnet and Stephane Cuhat. All three officials were together during the summer in EURO2008.

Some memorable matches involving Liverpool and Swiss referees.
11th April 1984 (A.Daina) - Sammy Lee scores the only goal against Dinamo Bucharest in the European Cup semi-final 1st leg at Anfield.
29th May 1985 (A.Daina) - The Heysel Stadium disaster. RIP.
18th September 1991 (M.Schlup) - Dean Saunders bags 4 and a brace from Ray Houghton see us win 6-1 against Kuusysil in our first European game since 1985.
19th April 2001 (U.Meier) - A Gary McAllister penalty sees us through to the UEFA Cup Final as we beat Barcelona 1-0.
26th February 2002 (U.Meier) - Emile Heskey scores a late equaliser in Turkey against Galatasaray in the Champions League.
13th July 2005 (C.Bertolini) - TNS are defeated 3-0 at Wrexham as we safely progressed into 2nd qualifying round of last season's Champions League.
19th October 2005 (M.Busacca) - A first half volley from Cissé gives us a 1-0 win at Anderlecht in the third group game of last seasons' competition.