Turkey's Galatasaray dropped from the Champions League to Europe's second-tier club competition on Tuesday with a 1-1 draw against Kazakh opponents Astana.
Galatasaray finished third in their group.
Patrick Twumasi broke the deadlock in the 62nd minute for Astana at the Türk Telekom Arena in Istanbul, only for the hosts to pull a goal back two minutes via a goal from Selçuk İnan.
Group C's other match saw Atletico Madrid finish at the top of the group after beating Benfica 2-1 in Lisbon.
Galatasaray go into the Europa League having accumulated five points from their six Champions League matches.
Mustafa Denizli, who was appointed as coach in November, said it was one of the "most difficult matches" in his career. "It was a pressing game. Things could have changed if we were obliged to win. Certainly, we aimed for victory but in the end, we reached to our main goal, that is, to keep playing in Europe," he said in a post-match press conference.
"There were individual mistakes and one of them helped Astana to score. But we will not fall even if we stumbled," Denizli said.
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