Second half goals from Luca Toni and Hamit Altintop lifted UEFA Cup favorites Bayern Munich through to the group stages with a 2-0 win over Portuguese side Belenenses on Thursday.
On a charged program across the continent other clubs celebrating their pass to the group stages where English Premiership outfits Tottenham, Everton and Bolton, and Scottish topflight side Aberdeen.
But two clubs that didn't make it past Thursday's first round second leg ties were the fourth Premiership side Blackburn and Ajax, the former European Champions who were knocked out by Dinamo Zagreb.
The Croatian outfit came good on the away goals rule after a 3-2 extra time win in a heated encounter over the Dutch masters which featured eight yellow cards.
Ottmar Hitzfeld's Bavarian giants avoided the ignominy of slipping up at the first hurdle when building on their first leg lead to advance 3-0 on aggregate in Portugal.
Aberdeen completed a week to remember for Scottish soccer when following up Rangers and Celtic's heroics in the Champions League by booking their place in the group stages with a 1-1 draw away to Dnipro for a 2-1 aggregate win.
Darren Mackie could not have come up with a better time to produce his first header of the season when grabbing Aberdeen's all important goal in the 27th minute.
The win came after Rangers had stunned French champions Lyon and city rivals Celtic meted out the same treatment to European champions AC Milan.
Tottenham were held to a 1-1 draw by Anorthosis in Larnaca but that was sufficient after their 6-1 thrashing of the Cypriots in London in the first leg to see them through 7-2 on aggregate.
Robbie Keane saved under fire coach Martin Jol from an embarrassing defeat when the Irish international came off the bench to cancel out Fabio De Matos Pereira's 54th minute goal.
Everton produced a battling second-half display to beat Metalist Kharkiv 3-2 on the night and 4-3 on aggregate.
David Moyes's men looked to be struggling at the interval at 1-0 down but goals from Joleon Lescott, James McFadden and substitute Victor Anichebe sealed the win.
In form Nicolas Anelka came off the bench to produce the 68th minute winner to send Bolton through 2-1 on aggregate against Macedonian leaders Rabotnicki Kometal.
Backburn were up against it trailing Greek side Larissa 2-0 after the first leg in Greece, and Silva Cleyton's 17 miniute strike left Mark Hughes's team needing four goals at Ewood Park.
Matt Derbyshire scored a retaken penalty in first-half injury-time after David Dunn was felled and Stephen Warnock fired a fine second on the volley from David Bentley's cross six minutes after the break -- but their best efforts proved insufficient.
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