Fenerbahce’s squad is littered with seasoned UCL campaigners, but it was one of their UCL novices who broke the deadlock early on, as Oguz Aydın stepped in off the right and curled an inch-perfect effort into the top corner, which the fingertips of Jakub Markovic couldn’t keep out.
The Turkish side were unrelenting in their approach, and doubled their advantage on 11 minutes through Mason Greenwood, who was found in the area by Nelson Semedo and took one touch to steady himself before volleying home.
But the hosts undid a lot of their good work when Matteo Guendouzi inexplicably played a blind pass to Lukas Provod on the edge of the area, allowing him to sweep home and halve the deficit.
Things did calm down from there after a frantic start, but that didn’t prevent Fenerbahce from twice coming close to extending the lead back to two goals.
The first came through Guendouzi, who whistled an effort just over the bar, before Aydin came close to doubling his tally for the evening when he whipped another effort narrowly wide of the target.
The Turkish side would certainly have been fearing those missed chances coming back to bite them after half-time, and they very nearly did within 10 minutes of the restart, when Provod was given too much space on the edge of the area but – fortunately for the hosts – dragged a left-footed effort wide.
Slavia pressure continued growing though, and it would have yielded an equaliser on the hour mark, but for a stunning last-ditch block from Archie Brown denying Wiktor Nowak.
Fenerbahce’s timid attacking display after the break, despite bringing on serial goalscorer Romelu Lukaku, hinted that they were likely to be holding onto the lead in the closing stages.
Lukaku did squander a good chance to make the final five minutes more comfortable when he wildly blazed a right-footed effort over the bar, and that proved to be a costly miss in the 90th minute when substitute Pavel Kacor stole a march on Semedo at the far post and turned home Emmanuel Ayaosi’s teasing delivery to continue Fenerbahce’s nightmare start to their first UCL main draw appearance since 2008/09.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Mason Greenwood (Fenerbahce)