FC Basel started their season with various warm-up matches against teams from Switzerland, Germany, Georgia, France and Romania and played against Hertha BSC and West Ham United at the 2011 Uhrencup in Grenchen.

They won the Swiss Cup after defeating FC Luzern in the final, and reached the knockout phase of the Champions League, losing to the eventual finalists Bayern Munich 1–7 on aggregate.

Then at the club's Extraordinary General Assembly on 16 January 2012 the 601 attending members confirmed these three directors in their positions and Adrian Knup joined them to become new vice chairman.

Three players were loaned out to obtain more playing time, Fwayo Tembo to ES Sahel, Pascal Schürpf to Aarau and Taulant Xhaka to Grasshopper Club.

He was third equal in the league ranking, together with Emmanuel Mayuka from the Young Boys, Vilmos Vanczák from FC Sion and Matías Vitkieviez who played for both Servette and YB.

Basel dominated their opponents from then onwards, Stephan Andrist drove a long drive wide and then Jacques Zoua put the ball into the net, but was ruled off-side.

Basel's head coach Thorsten Fink had given David Abraham, Benjamin Huggel and Marco Streller a free week-end, but the newly signed Philipp Degen was on the bench, ready to make his comeback.

Basel dominated the game in the first half, a long range shot from the forwards moving defender Markus Steinhöfer was punched out by keeper Guillaume Faivre.

After the break Basel again dominated play, Philipp Degen with a long cross from the right towards the far post to captain Streller and his first-time left foot volley rocketed into the net.

The Basel team pulled themselves together, played with more tempo and created further chances and a long distance left footed shot from Streller scraped the cross bar.

A bad pass from Sven Lüscher, Alexander Frei pushed the ball into the box and captain Marco Streller made no mistake to put Basel one up with their first chance in the 38th minute.

In a run two against two, Basel's substitute Xherdan Shaqiri played the ball clear to Frei, but he shot wide with only goalkeeper Christian Leite to beat.

Heiko Vogel's team didn't even have a handful of scoring chances in the first half, with Valentin Stocker's shot from close range in the 26th minute being the highlight from the FCB point of view.

It was a wonderful goal, but it caused was a vigorous reaction from Luzern, which culminated in the 67th minute in the deserved equaliser, also per header, from Tomislav Puljić Because Basel did not get any reward for their final offensive, the game went into extra time.

First, Sommer miraculously saved an effort by Michel Renggli and secondly Radoslav Kováč 's intervention, as last man, against Adrian Winter could have been sanctioned.

In the second minute the Basel defence failed to clear the ball, but Gabriel Giurgiu shot too weakly straight into goalkeeper Yann Sommer's arms.

Referee William Collum from the Scottish Football Association had no choice, showed the defender a straight red and awarded a penalty that Alex Frei converted.

In the early stages the teams were showing entertaining football, but Benfica goalkeeper Artur and Basel's Yann Sommer were more than equal to the attempts from Alexander Frei and Rodrigo.

However, apart from a few speculative long-range efforts from the lively winger Xherdan Shaqiri, Basel's attack failed to trouble the confident Benfica keeper Artur.

First, he hit the ball over the top, after Aimar's good diagonal pass, then he headed Maxi Pereira's accurate cross straight into Sommer's hands.

His low perfectly weighted cross was met by the onrushing captain Benjamin Huggel and he placed his superb shot inside Artur's right-hand post from the edge of the penalty area.

Benfica tried to react, but the 1–1 score line remained up until the final whistle from referee Carlos Velasco Carballo of the Royal Spanish Football Federation.

It was a clear night, the pitch was dry and the temperature had dropped below the freezing point as referee Tom Harald Hagen of the Football Association of Norway blew the whistle to start the game in front of 5,787 fans.

The Basel defence tried not to react too nervously, but six minutes later left-back Park Joo-Ho was far too casual inside the area, letting Liviu Antal round him and place his short out of reach for keeper Yann Sommer.

Keeper David de Gea could not clear the ball far enough and captain Marco Streller slammed a fierce shot home to put the hosts a goal ahead after nine minutes.

Although Phil Jones headed the ball home after Federico Macheda's shot had rebounded from the cross-bar, Basel survived a tense final two minutes to advance to the knock-out phase with the 2–1 win.

They finished the group in second place after a decisive home win against Manchester United and thus securing qualification for the knockout phase, the round of 16.

The first leg in the round of 16 was played in the with 36,000 spectators sold-out St. Jakob-Park on a clear night with soft pitch under referee Nicola Rizzoli of the Italian Football Federation.

The stadium was sold-out with 66,000 fans on this cloudy evening and the pitch was described as dry as referee Mark Clattenburg from the Football Association blew his whistle for the kick-off.

Bit Basel's 1-0 aggregate lead was wiped out after 10 minutes by Arjen Robben and after the home team had dominated most of the match, Bayern seized complete control with two further goals from Thomas Müller and from Mario Gomez shortly before the break.