rafa benitez has admitted he tried to raid former club chelsea to sign andre schurrle before the midfielder joined wolfsburg in january the napoli manager, who won the europa league as blues boss in 2013, will see his side line up against the german outfit in the quarter finals of the competition on thursday as well as schurrle, benitez also admitted to trying to sign ivan perisic and luiz gustavo before their january departures to wolfsburg from borussia dortmund and bayern munich respectively napoli boss rafael benitez takes charge of training at the wolfsburg arena  gonzalo higuain works with the ball ahead of the europa league quarter final at the wolfsburg arena  lorenzo insigne performs during the training session on the eve of the quarter final  dynamo kiev vs fiorentina  club bruges vs dnipro  sevilla vs zenit  wolfsburg vs napoli  all kick offs 805pm bst  'it’s true we tracked luiz gustavo, ivan perisic and andre schurrle for a long time, but it was not possible to sign them,' benitez said 'wolfsburg are a strong side with huge potential, so we will give 100 per cent in this difficult game' napoli travel to wolfsburg for the first leg of the quarter final and benitez also added that his team had more character than his europa league winning chelsea team, as well as his liverpool outfit who won the champions league in 2005  'looking at the character, this is perhaps the best team i've ever had, benitez said 'they are excellent professionals my team are ready for this and hopefully we'll have the killer instinct which is missing sometimes wolfsburg striker nicklas bendtner tests his agility during a training session before the european tie  former chelsea midfielder kevin de bruyne also trained with wolfsburg  luiz gustavo, linked with a january move to napoli, trains on the eve of the europa league tie for wolfsburg  'wolfsburg have a physically strong team so we have to look at ourselves, show our quality on the pitch 'many of wolfsburg's players could easily slot into our team they have a lot of quality and that's why we will show them as much respect as they deserve with tottenham, liverpool and everton having already been dumped out, there are no english teams in the last eight as dynamo kiev face fiorentina, club bruges take on dnipro and holders sevilla host zenit andre schurrle was a target for rafa benitez before the german midfielder left chelsea to join wolfsburg here he reaches for the ball in a league game against stuttgart earlier in april  benitez takes his napoli side to wolfsburg for a europa league quarter final, with the former chelsea boss winning the competition with the blues in 2013 
£24m thursday andre schurrle europa league germany ex chelsea chelsea wolfsburg rafa benitez liverpool napoli luiz gustavo & ivan perisic january
andre schurrle joined wolfsburg from chelsea in january for £24m  rafa benitez admitted he wanted to sign germany international  ex chelsea and liverpool boss also tracked luiz gustavo & ivan perisic  napoli face wolfsburg in europa league quarter finals on thursday 