A Malmö team fighting for their very UEL survival made the early inroads, with an early flashpoint seeing Otto Rosengren play a ball over the top for Anders Christiansen who fired over from inside the area.
It was a warning shot that Galatasaray failed to heed, and the Swedish side took a deserved lead on 24’ when a failed Galatasaray clearance allowed Jens Stryger to cross in for the unmarked Erik Botheim to head in off the far post and end the hosts’ barren run of five UEL home games without a goal.
With the visitors shorn of the injured Victor Osimhen’s services, they looked nothing like a side that sat proudly atop the pre-matchday charts for shots attempted. However, the pendulum swung in their favour just two minutes before the interval.
Kerem Demirbay won the ball deep on the left flank and centered for Elias Jelert, who rolled the ball past a statuesque 17-year-old Joakim Persson to ensure Galatasaray’s 21st goalscoring outing in their 23rd competitive game of the campaign.
There was no shortage of endeavour from the start of the second half, with Yunus having some grounds to feel aggrieved after seeing a penalty appeal turned down.
Galatasaray continued to threaten though, and reaped their reward for pressurising the Malmö backline, with a turnover in possession seeing Dries Mertens and Yunus Akgun play a neat pass-and-move sequence, at the end of which the latter squeezed a shot that slipped under the mistimed dive of Malmö’s teenage custodian.
Malmö head coach Henrik Rydström didn’t panic at that point, initially making just the one change.
Nor was there any sign of the Swedish side putting their visitors under relentless pressure and forcing them to sit deep, with Michy Batshuayi seeing an attempted shot blocked by an alert blue shirt, before he finally hit the net from a frantic goalmouth scramble with a quarter-hour remaining – only to see the offside flag cut short any celebrations.
When Fernando Muslera made a stunning near-post save from Malmö substitute Taha Ali, it seemed as though the Turkish outfit would go on to seal victory.
But a twist came in the second minute of five added on, when a series of failed clearances stretched the Galatasaray defence, allowing Sergio Peña to charge through and fire high into the top-right corner via the post to secure a potentially vital point for Malmö in their quest to avoid UEL elimination.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Yunus Akgun (Galatasaray)