Aurelien Chedjou’s second-half equaliser earned Galatasaray a 1-1 first-leg draw at home to Chelsea yesterday to leave their Champions League last-16 tie evenly poised.
The defender took advantage of sloppy marking to find space in the box and steer home Wesley Sneijder’s inswinging corner on 65 minutes.
Fernando Torres had silenced a raucous crowd when he fired Chelsea into a ninth-minute lead and the Premier League leaders controlled the first half.
But the Turkish side improved after the break and Selcuk Inan was guilty of a bad miss from close range moments before Chedjou’s goal.
Selcuk could only steer Didier Drogba’s downward header against the outside of the post.
Drogba, Chelsea’s record European scorer with 34 goals in 69 games, was otherwise kept quiet in his first game against his former side since scoring the winning penalty when the Londoners lifted the Champions League trophy in May 2012.
Chelsea dominated the opening 45 minutes but just had Torres’s early goal as reward.
Andre Schuerrle set the overlapping Cezar Azpilicueta free on the left flank and his low cross was met by the Spaniard to fire low into an unguarded net.
The hosts countered with Izet Hajrovic blazing over Sneijder’s cutback while from another rapid Chelsea break, Ramires, with his bloodied nose plastered from an earlier aerial challenge, fired a Schuerrle cross high and wide.
Torres was denied a second by a sprawling save from Fernando Muslera soon after the restart but the game then went through a scrappy period, punctuated by a flurry of yellow cards shown by Spanish referee Carlos Velasco Carballo.
Having enjoyed a let-off with Selcuk’s miss, Chelsea then fell asleep at a corner when no one picked up Chedjou and the Cameroon international gleefully equalised from six metres out.
With their tails up, Galatasaray pressed forward and Alex Telles forced Petr Cech to turn over his stinging drive but Chelsea stood firm.
In Germany, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema scored twice each as rampant Real Madrid ripped Schalke 04 apart with an empathic, one-sided 6-1 away win.
Benzema and Bale quickly put Real in control as Real raced to a 2-0 lead in 21 minutes in Gel-senkirchen and Ronaldo also hit the post before the break.
Ronaldo increased the lead with his 10th goal of the competition in the 52nd minute before setting up Benzema for the fourth with a delightful flick five minutes later.
Bale added the fifth in the 69th minute and Ronaldo rounded off the rout before Klaas-Jan Huntelaar pulled one back in stoppage time as Schalke slumped to their heaviest defeat in European competition.
Round of 16 (first leg results)
Played yesterday
Galatasaray (Turkey) vs Chelsea (England) - 1-1
Schalke 04 (Germany) vs Real Madrid (Spain) - 1-6
Other results
Zenit St Petersburg (Russia) vs Borussia Dortmund (Germany) - 2-4
Olympiakos (Greece) vs Manchester United (England) - 2-0
Milan (Italy) vs Atletico Madrid (Spain) - 0-1
Arsenal (England) vs Bayern Munich (Germany) - 0-2
Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) vs Paris St Germain (France) - 0-4
Manchester City (England) vs Barcelona (Spain) - 0-2
Second legs: March 11/12 and March 18-19.