By Fatih Erel

ISTANBUL

Turkey's Galatasaray will face Portugal's Benfica in the first leg game of the Round of 32 in UEFA Europa League on Thursday.

The match will kick off 1755GMT in Turk Telekom Stadium in Istanbul.

Benfica trashed Nacional on Sunday evening with a staggering score of 10-0. Benfica continued to closely follow Porto after their sixth league win in a row, increasing their points total to 50, only one point behind the leaders.

Galatasaray cut the deficit with the leader Medipol Basaksehir to six points with Sunday’s win against Trabzonspor with a 3-1 score in 'Spor Toto Super Lig'.

The 'Lions' is the only Turkish club to have won the UEFA Cup in 1999-2000 and the 2000 UEFA Super Cup while Benfica won two European Cups in 1961 and 1962 and lost two Europa League finals recently in 2013 and in 2014.

So far, Galatasaray have played 277 matches in UEFA competitions, winning 99 games and losing 106.

The round of 32 in the UEFA Europa League, the second highest level football competition in Europe, kicked off Tuesday as Turkey's Fenerbahce beat Russia's Zenit 1-0 in the first leg game.

First leg matches taking place on Feb. 12 and Feb.14 and the second leg games will be played on Feb. 20 and 21.

The first leg games are as follows:

Tuesday:

Fenerbahce (TUR) v Zenit (RUS): 1-0

Thursday:

Plzen (CZE) v Dinamo Zagreb (CRO)

Club Brugge (BEL) v Salzburg (AUT)

Rapid Wien (AUT) v Internazionale (ITA)

Slavia Praha (CZE) v Genk (BEL)

Krasnodar (RUS) v Leverkusen (GER)

Zurich (SUI) v Napoli (ITA)

Malmo (SWE) v Chelsea (ENG)

Shakhtar Donetsk (UKR) v Frankfurt (GER)

Celtic (SCO) v Valencia (ESP)

Rennes (FRA) v Betis (ESP)

Olympiacos (GRE) v Dynamo Kyiv (UKR)

Lazio (ITA) v Sevilla (ESP)

Sporting CP (POR) v Villarreal (ESP)

BATE (BLR) v Arsenal (ENG)

Galatasaray (TUR) v Benfica (POR)