UEFA Champions League

The third qualifying round of the Champions League got underway on Tuesday night and it's at this stage where the clubs from the bigger nations get involved in the process.

Some of the biggest names in the world game were in action including former winners of the old European cup - including AC Milan, Benfica and Ajax.

Milan's game was against another former winner of the tournament -- Crvena Zvezda Beograd, better known to English speakers as Red Star Belgrade. It was only a fortnight ago that the Rossonieri were given the go-ahead to take part in the competition after appealing their sentence in the Italian match fixing scandal. In the event, the Italians could only win 1-0, with a goal from Pippo Inzaghi on his 33rd birthday.

Benfica left the Ernst Happel stadium in Vienna with a 1-1 draw on Tuesday night against Austria Magna. Nuno Gomes scored Benfica's goal with a cheeky backheel after only 16 minutes but the Eagles of Lisbon squandered a number of other chances and let the Austrians grab an equaliser through Frenchman Jocelyn Blanchard. Austria Magna are better known as Austria Vienna but are renamed for their European campaign after the gaming company owned by their main sponsor, the Canadian businessman Frank Stronach.

For the second season running Ajax have to overcome Danish opponents to get into the group stage of the Champions League. Brondby were beaten last year and it looks like the team from Amsterdam will do a double as they left the Parken stadium in Copenhagen with a 2-1 victory over FC København. The impressive Klaas Jan Huntelaar bagged a brace for Ajax either side of an equaliser by Brede Hangeland. The Danes are six games into thier domestic season and their sharpness showed as they caused the Dutch side many problems but their Swedish striker Marcus Allbäck was thwarted each time by Maarten Stekelenburg in the Ajax goal.

The other game on Tuesday night was in Zagreb where Dinamo played host to Arsenal, bereft of Thierry Henry up front as well as Ashley Cole and Jose Antonio Reyes due to rumoured impending transfers. Even without three key players, the Londoners came away with an excellent 3-0 victory -- Cesc Fabregas getting two of the goals. New signing Tomas Rosicky played well in his competitive debut while the Dinamo rarely threatened and have a mission impossible at the Arsenal's new Emirates stadium in a fortnight.

Proving that Austria Magna do not have the monopoly on ridiculous European football re-brandings, Red Bull Salzburg pulled off a surprise under new coach Giovanni Trappatoni by beating Valencia 1-0 -- lively Czech striker Karel Piták scored the winner with 17 minutes to go. Valencia laboured all evening and even the introduction of talented Spanish World Cup striker David Villa failed to provide the impetus they needed. The Spaniards will need to create more chances for strikers Villa and Fernando Morientes at the Mestalla if they want to progress to the league stage.

The closest tie on paper proved to be very close on the pitch as well where Osasuna drew 0-0 with Hamburg in Germany. The Bundesliga side were attack minded from the start and Dutch schemer Rafael Van Der Vaart heavily involved in all their good attacking play. Osasuna have based their recent success on a sound defence and will be delighted to travel back to their El Sadar stadium with a clean sheet, but if on-loan Real Madrid striker Roberto Soldado had put away two good chances when one-on-one with Hamburg keeper Sascha Kirschstein, the Basques could have had one foot in the league stage already.

More former winners had mixed results on Wednesday - Steaua Bucharest got two away goals in a potentially tricky tie away at Belgians Standard Liege while five-time champions Liverpool laboured to a 2-1 victory over Maccabi Haifa - new Chilean signing Mark Gonzalez grabbing the winner three minutes from time.

Hearts threw away a victory at home against AEK Athens when letting in two late goals at the Murrayfield rugby stadium in Edinburgh. The Jambos took the lead in the 62nd minute through Lithuanian striker Saulius Mikoliunas but had Portuguese midfielder Bruno Aguiar sent off four minutes later for two bookable offences - although the second looked very harsh. The Greeks take a 2-1 victory to Athens in two weeks time thanks to Pantelis Kapetanos in the 89th minuter and then an own goal by former Panathinaikos man Takis Fyssas.

There's still all to play for in the tie between the Czechs Slovan Liberec and Spartak Moscow which ended 0-0, while Spartak's cross town rivals CSKA thrashed Slovakians Ružomberok 3-0 thanks to two goals from Ivica Olic and Brazilian striker Vagner Love.

Ukrainians Shakhtar Donetsk could only beat Legia Warsaw 1-0 through an Elano penalty although the winning margin should have been much greater for the side owned by billionaire Rinat Akhmetov.

The other Ukrainian team in the competition, and Shakhtar's great rivals, Dynamo Kiev beat Turkish team Fenerbahce 3-1. The game was one of the ties of the round with a heavy Brazilian influence for both sides - Diogo Rincon scoring two of Dynamo's goal and Marco Aurélio getting Fener's reply.

Another side from Istanbul had a much better result - Galatasaray effectively ending Mladá Boleslav's interest in this year's competition by beating the Czechs 5-2 with a two-goal haul from Serbian Sasa Ilic.

Italians Chievo surprising lost 2-0 to Levski Sofia and the Bulgarians are on the verge of being the first team from that country to make the Champions League group stage. Although the Flying Donkeys from Verona have only one UEFA Cup campaign to their name and owe their position in the tournament to the expulsion of Fiorentina and Juventus, they were still expected to get at least a draw in Sofia. Goals from Valeri Domovchiyski and Cédric Bardon gives the Bulgarians a vital first leg lead.

Finally, French side Lille beat Rabotnicki of Macedonia 3-0 to look almost certain of playing Champions League football for a second consecutive season. Claude Puel's tough outfit are capable of causing an upset or two in the tournament and should be looked out for in the upcoming months of European club football.