The Turkish giants had many scoring opportunities in the first half but were unsuccessful, and they fell behind in the second half due to a mistake by Victor Nelsson. Abdülkerim Bardakc scored for Galatasaray to draw even, but Halil Dervişolu, a new acquisition for Brentford, gave the Lions the lead. Galatasaray appeared to be going home with the victory, but Donatas Kazlauskas scored a dramatic equaliser for Zalgiris in stoppage time.

Galatasaray struggled to acclimatise to the synthetic surface during the game, and they also made numerous individual mistakes in defence. The team's defensive play worried head coach Okan Buruk, but he saw that it was an important learning lesson and promised to come back stronger in the second leg. Vladimir Cheburin, the manager of Zalgiris, expressed satisfaction with his team's performance and promised to analyse the game to alter their strategy for the second leg.