Basel's Champions League elimination of Liverpool on Tuesday was all the more remarkable given the financial gulf between the two clubs.
While Liverpool raked in 97.54 million pounds (152.97 million dollars) in Premier League broadcast revenue last season, their conquerors earned just (2.48 million dollars) from Swiss League television rights.
Meanwhile, the 20 million pounds that Liverpool splashed out on Lazar Markovic, sent off during Tuesday's 1-1 draw at Anfield, was more than twice Basle'e entire transfer spending in the summer window.
Yet, Basle have repeatedly upstaged richer clubs with a business model based on nurturing young talent and creating a fan-friendly environment which pulls in capacity crowds on a regular basis, even in the modest Swiss Super League.
Swiss champions for the last five years, they also knocked Manchester United out of the Champions League three years ago and have won four and drawn one of their last five Champions League matches against English opponents.
Even their biggest rivals, FC Zurich, were impressed by Basle's latest achievement, congratulating them on Twitter.
"Our business is to some extent limited in merchandising, so we have to be smarter in other areas," club president Bernhard Heusler told the International Football Arena conference in Zurich last week.
"We invest a lot of money in our youth department and aim to have one third of the players of in the squad developed in our own youth department.
"We have created an atmosphere which gives the players the feeling they have a lot of trust and esteem as human beings."
"It's very important the coach can work freely and use his confidence with the team so he is strengthened until the end of his days in the club. We support 100 him percent until his last day at the club," he added.
Basle established themselves as the dominant force in Switzerland under Swiss and German coaches but, in a change of direction, named Portugal's Paulo Sousa as coach this season.
The former Juventus and Borussia Dortmund midfielder certainly needed the club's backing early on as he fielded a bewildering variety of line-ups and formations, but has been vindicated by recent results.
"For me and my staff, and especially the players, it's about creating more history for this great club," he said after Tuesday's match. "It means we are moving in the right direction to achieve important things.
"As a club, it gives us an opportunity to challenge the best teams. This is where we want to be and competing like we did today, in these sorts of environments with our fantastic fans, who believed in what we were doing.
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