Fulham hold a narrow 2-1 lead over Wolfsburg after the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final tie at Craven Cottage on Thursday evening.
Bobby Zamora and Damien Duff both scored in the latest chapter of Roy Hodgson's side's amazing European adventure, but right at the death Alexander Madlung headed home an away goal for the German champions and the tie is now very delicately poised.
Pretty much all the action came in the second half as the first 45 minutes proved, in the main, very dour.
The first chance of note fell to the Bundesliga side's Christian Gentner, but Mark Schwarzer turned away his low drive before Diego Benaglio kept out a 30-yard Zoltan Gera effort at the other end.
Benaglio then denied Clint Dempsey as well and, after further chances for Zamora and Dickson Etuhu brought nothing, the American was guilty of the miss of the match just before half-time. Duff managed to get away from three Wolfsburg defenders on the edge of the area before setting up Demspey on the left but he fired wide to leave the game scoreless at the break.
And if a goal was going to come in the second half, the early stages suggested it would come from Wolfsburg, the highly-rated Edin Dzeko shooting wide before being given a free header after a Brede Hangeland error but failing to connect properly. Grafite also nabbed a chance but his shot at Schwarzer was tame and easy for the Australian to hold.
Yet Craven Cottage was soon rocking as the hosts went in front with a fine Zamora goal. Gera picked out the former West Ham man who carried the ball forward to the edge of the area and, as Duff drew a couple of defenders out to the right, found the space to ram a left-footed effort past Benaglio.
That came just before the hour and just after the hour it was 2-0. Zamora received the ball outside the area from Danny Murphy and used his strength to keep possession before laying the ball off to Duff, who buried it from 15 yards for his first European goal since scoring for Chelsea in their cracking 4-2 Champions League win over Barcelona five years ago.
Dzeko headed wide from a tight angle as Wolfsburg chased an away goal while Duff was denied a penalty at the other end before Fulham's hunger for another goal subsided in the closing stages.
And that could yet prove very costly as - with a minute to go - Zvjezdan Misimovic worked a clever corner to create space on the Wolfsburg right. He duly fired in a peach of a cross for giant defender Madlung to power home with his head and put a sour note on what was looking to be another great European night for Fulham.
They still lead ahead of next week's second leg in Germany but it could have been so much better.