Key stats
- Alejandro Garnacho is the first player to score for two different English clubs in the Champions League (for Man Utd and Chelsea), while aged 21 or younger.
- Qarabağ have scored in their last four games in the Champions League, their longest run of games with a goal in the competition (since at least 2004/2005).
- This is only the third time in the Champions League that Chelsea have scored first and trailed at half time in a game after Napoli in February 2012, and Zenit St Petersburg in December 2021.
Highlights
Analysis
Estevao starred for Chelsea and earned a Flashscore rating of 7.9, while Leandro Andrade was Qarabag's best player (7.4) and received our Man of the Match award.
Match report
Roméo Lavia made the long journey only to be forced off with injury after eight minutes, and his replacement, Moisés Caicedo, was the first to threaten when he sent a half-volley flying over after a corner was cleared to the edge of the area.
Andrey Santos should have at least hit the target with a close-range chance, but he atoned on 16 minutes when he teed up Estêvão to cut inside from the right and rifle the opening goal in at the near post.
The home side had looked dangerous on their rare ventures forward, but hadn’t shaken off the last line of the Blues’ defence. That all changed just before the half-hour mark when Camilo Durán shrugged off Jorrel Hato and powered a strike against the post, which Leandro Andrade tucked away on the rebound.
Qarabağ kept the pressure on, and Hato’s dismal half got worse when he gave the ball away, allowing Andrade to put in a cross, which the defender blocked with his hand inside the area.
Marko Janković sent Robert Sánchez the wrong way from the resulting spot-kick to give the hosts the HT lead.
The Horsemen’s advantage lasted until the eighth minute of the second half, when Alejandro Garnacho attempted a square pass, which Kevin Medina cut out, but the loose ball was picked up again by the Argentinian, who buried it in the bottom corner of Mateusz Kochalski’s goal.
The home goalkeeper suddenly had his work cut out, reacting well to an Enzo Fernández effort as Chelsea’s HT changes made the desired impact.
Nariman Akhundzade and Liam Delap saw efforts go narrowly wide before a driven Fernández strike went a whisker over, as both sides pushed for the crucial fifth goal.
Facundo Buonanotte thought he had found it five minutes from time, but his 25-yard effort swerved agonisingly wide at the last moment.
Oleksiy Kashchuk and Garnacho each passed up guilt-edged opportunities in added time, but the draw means Gurban Gurbanov’s side have avoided defeat to English opposition at the eighth attempt, while it’s just the fourth time in 24 international matches under Maresca that Chelsea haven’t emerged victorious.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Leandro Andrade (Qarabağ FK)
Click here to see all the stats of the match.
Post-match comments
Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca said: "I think the big difference was inside the box. Again we conceded silly goals that we could avoid and we could probably finish better with most of the actions that we created.
"When we conceded the first goal, they were with 10 players. I think it is quite silly to concede this kind of goal. Then we conceded the penalty, so the second half is more difficult because you are 2-1 behind and you need to score.
"We need to defend better inside the box and probably need to attack better in the other box."