Vedat Muriqi and Archie Brown put Fenerbahce two goals up inside 28 minutes at Groupama Stadium, and 18 years of waiting for a Champions League league phase ended there. Malick Fofana pulled one back for Lyon on 61 minutes, but the Turkish side held on as Lois Openda and Kail Boudache both had efforts ruled out for offside late on.

The 2-1 away win on August 26 turned a 1-1 stalemate from the first leg in Istanbul into a 3-2 aggregate. It sent Ismail Kartal’s side into the 36-team league phase and dropped Paulo Fonseca’s Lyon into the Europa League league phase.

Kartal back for a fourth spell

Kartal was appointed on June 18 for his fourth spell in charge, after Domenico Tedesco was sacked in April following a 3-0 derby defeat to Galatasaray, with Zeki Murat Göle taking the team as interim until the end of the season. Jose Mourinho had been sacked at the end of August 2025 after Fenerbahce were eliminated in the previous Champions League playoff by Benfica.

His side had already come through two qualifying rounds this summer, beating Gornik Zabrze and Sturm Graz to reach the Lyon tie.

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An exile that started with a scandal, not a result

Fenerbahce have played in the Champions League group stage six times, most recently in 2008-09. What followed is one of the bitterest European stories in Turkish football: after qualifying directly, the club was barred from taking part while Turkish authorities pursued a match-fixing investigation in the early 2010s. A two-year UEFA ban followed later.

Since then it has been playoff exits, Europa League and Conference League nights, and every August a fresh headline about a Champions League “return” that never quite arrived. This time it did.

Istanbul back in force, a first since 2001-02

The Champions League draw the day after the win put Fenerbahce alongside city rivals Galatasaray in the same league phase, the first time the Istanbul giants have played together in the competition since the 2001-02 season.

Fenerbahce will host Liverpool, Roma, Villarreal and Slavia Prague, and travel to Atletico Madrid, Aston Villa, Shakhtar Donetsk and LASK. Galatasaray were drawn to welcome Barcelona, Feyenoord and Stuttgart, with away trips to PSG, Sporting, Lille and AEK Athens.

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The Champions League league phase begins on Tuesday, September 8.

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