LONDON, 2 October 2004 — Most of the big names advanced safely to the new group stage of the UEFA Cup after a frantic night’s action on Thursday, though Parma and Real Zaragoza cut it fine.

On a night of 39 first round, second leg matches — plus a one-off tie — Lazio, Newcastle United, Feyenoord, Benfica, AEK Athens and Lille were among the 40 teams going through.

Serie A side Udinese missed out, however, as they could only beat Panionios 1-0 at home to go down 3-2 on aggregate to the Greeks.

There were some incidents of crowd trouble, particularly in Budapest where at least one Millwall fan was reported to have suffered stab wounds in clashes in the city before the English team’s game against Ferencvaros — won 3-1 by the hosts for a 4-2 aggregate.

Scores of people were also injured in fighting between Red Star Belgrade fans and riot police after the club lost 2-1 at home to Zenit St Petersburg to go out 6-1 on aggregate.

The next phase, the draw for which takes place on Tuesday, will feature eight groups of five teams, who will each play two home and two away games — instead of the usual system of playing each other home and away.

After all that, the top three teams from each group will emerge to a new knockout stage, where they will be joined by the eight third-placed finishers from the Champions League group stage. A team who played in the UEFA Cup’s first qualifying round would need to play an incredible 18 matches to reach the final.

The three teams qualifying from the InterToto Cup could add another 10 matches, which, including the UEFA Cup final, would produce a grand total of 29 games.

Germany’s Schalke O4, UEFA Cup winners in 1997 but who qualified for the second consecutive season via the InterToto, stormed through 9-1 on aggregate after a 4-0 win at Latvia’s Liepajas Metalurg, helped by a Mike Hanke hat-trick.

Fellow Germans VfB Stuttgart also won 4-0, at home to Ujpest, for a 7-1 success while Sochaux of France went one better, winning 5-0 at Norwegian side Stabaek for a 9-0 aggregate.

Zaragoza, who qualified by beating Real Madrid in last season’s Spanish Cup final, needed a late charge to avoid going out at the hands of Sigma Olomouc.

The Czechs led 2-0 on the night and 2-1 on aggregate with 12 minutes to go only for visiting Zaragoza to bang in three goals in eight minutes to go through 4-2 overall.

Parma, twice winners of the competition but currently bottom of Serie A, edged through 3-2 on aggregate after a goalless draw at Slovenian side Maribor. Newcastle, semifinalists last season, completed the job against Israel’s history-making Arab side Bnei Sakhnin with a 5-1 victory in Tel Aviv. An Alan Shearer hat trick and two for Patrick Kluivert earned the English team a 7-1 aggregate win.

Two goals for Fabio Liverani and one for Roberto Muzzi inside the opening half hour gave Lazio a 3-0 home win over Metalurg Donetsk — doubling their first leg advantage.

Of the four former European champions in action only Red Star failed to progress. Steaua Bucharest went through 4-3 on aggregate after a 2-2 draw at CSKA Sofia, Feyenoord beat Odd Grenland of Norway 4-1 (5-1) and Benfica overcame Banska Bystrica 2-0 at home to go through 5-0. There was also a one-off first round match as Heerenveen and Maccabi Petah Tikva finally got to meet after weeks of postponements. A fixture clash was followed by a general strike in Israel and UEFA eventually designated Thursday’s game in the Netherlands as decisive. It was certainly that as Heerenveen eased to a 5-0 win.

Meanwhile, Ferencvaros have denied their fans threw missiles at Millwall supporters and officials during Thursday’s tie after European football’s governing body decided to charge the Hungarian side.

Ferencvaros said the only trouble took place outside the ground before the match and that they had taken proper security measures inside the stadium, where they said the only problems were caused by ticketless Millwall fans trying to force their way in.

The Hungarian club’s officials also said that their fans had been applauded by the Millwall players after the match and their players had applauded supporters of the English second division side.