Marcel Desailly rescued Chelsea with a goal from a curled shot in injury time after the cup holders appeared to have paid the price for not turning domination into goals last night when unfancied Copenhagen scored an unexpected goal eight minutes from time.
A bad failure to control the ball in his own area by the returning Dennis Wise allowed Bjarne Goldbaek to rifle a shot from the edge of the area past Ed de Goey. Chelsea now have it all to do in Denmark in two weeks' time.
Copenhagen came into the game trying to prevent an unwanted hattrick of defeats for their nation at the hands of British sides. Wales recently beat Denmark in Copenhagen and on Wednesday night Manchester United, of course, trounced Brondby who share a home stadium with FC Copenhagen.
And Copenhagen's strategy in trying to unsettle Chelsea on the pitch was somewhat predictable: sit back with just one striker up and look to score on the break.
This they so nearly did after 24 minutes when the home defence was opened up with worrying ease. The lock-picker was Niclas Jensen, whose cross from the left found the Chelsea back four flat-footed and the striker David Nielsen in acres of space about eight yards out. However, the front man could only scrape an inviting chance wide.
Chelsea, with Dennis Wise and Graeme Le Saux back after injury, chose to play with three strikers, Laudrup, Gianfranco Zola and Pierluigi Casiraghi. But despite plenty of rotation, this time in the opposing penalty area, it took them a while to test Copenhagen's former Liverpool goalkeeper Michael Stensgaard.
But on 32 minutes he needed to pull off a fine save to thwart Casiraghi's chip, and then pushed an 18-yard bender from the Italian acrobatically round the post.
In between, Zola hit the post with a clever turn and shot after a onetwo with Roberto Di Matteo but Chelsea went in at half-time with no reward to show for their domination.
Despite having Copenhagen on the rack again in the second half, Chelsea's opening goal still would not come. And Vialli was entitled to wonder if it ever would as, on 56 minutes, his team managed to hit the post for the second time.
On this occasion Le Saux's cross from the left was nodded back by Casiraghi to Gustavo Poyet, but the Uruguayan's shot thundered against the right-hand upright.
If Chelsea were serious about the defence of their trophy, they needed to score, and after 69 minutes Vialli made a predictable throw of his dice by sending on Tore Andre Flo to replace Casiraghi.
Polish prosecutors have begun an inquiry into an incident during a UEFA Cup game on Tuesday in which Dino Baggio of Parma was struck by a metal object thrown from the crowd.
Chelsea: De Goey, Leboeuf, Desailly, Laudrup, Poyet, Casiraghi (Flo 68), Wise, Le Saux, Di Matteo, Ferrer (Petrescu 69), Zola. Subs Not Used: Babayaro, Duberry, Hitchcock, Lambourde, Morris. Goals: Desailly 90. FC
Copenhagen: Steensgaard, L. Nielsen (Falch 84), Hemmingsen, Goldbaek, Haren, D. Nielsen, P. Nielsen, Thorninger (Jonsson 73), Miacael Nielsen, Jensen, Rytter (Madsen 65). Subs Not Used: Martin Nielsen, Larsen, C Nielsen, Pedersen. Goals: Goldbaek 80. Att: 21,207. Referee: M Tokat (Turkey).
