Mixed fortunes for Scottish clubs

Rangers clinched a place in the last 16 of the Uefa Cup thanks to Nacho Novo's late heroics in Athens but Aberdeen were soundly beaten in Munich.

His 81st-minute equaliser against Panathinaikos earned a dramatic away-goals victory over the Greek giants as the contest ended 1-1 at the Apostolos Nikolaidis stadium.

It was appropriate the Spaniard should score, as Novo had been the main culprit in front of goal for Rangers in the goalless home leg last week.

Ioannis Goumas had earlier given Panathinaikos the lead with the first goal in the tie, a thunderous 25-yard strike.

Bayern Munich then showed their true colours to thrash Aberdeen 5-1 to win 7-3 on aggregate. After a 2-2 draw at Pittodrie a week ago, the German giants were keen to finish the tie off as soon as possible, and Ottmar Hitzfeld's side were straight onto the attack.

Lukas Podolski hit the woodwork early on before Lucio put them ahead in the 12th minute and fellow centre-back Daniel van Buyten added a second 10 minutes before the interval.

Two goals from Podolski in the space of five second-half minutes killed the game off before Steve Lovell netted a consolation and Mark van Bommel added a fifth to complete the scoring.

Earlier, Bayer Leverkusen hammered Galatasaray 5-1. The tie was evenly poised after a goalless first leg, but two goals from Sergej Barbarez and another from Stefan Kiessling in the first 22 minutes at the BayArena effectively settled things in favour of the German side.

Karim Haggui made it four 10 minutes after the break and Bernd Schneider added another from the penalty spot just after the hour, though the Turkish side did pull one back through Ahmed Barusso's 87th-minute spot-kick.

Leverkusen face an all-German match-up with Hamburg in the last 16 after a 0-0 draw at FC Zurich was enough to put Huub Stevens' men through. HSV held a 3-1 advantage from the first leg and that was all they needed as both sides struggled to create chances in a stale second encounter.

Spartak Moscow came up just short, with their 2-0 win against Marseille not enough to send them through. Spartak always had a mountain to climb after losing 3-0 at the Stade Velodrome last week, but Aleksandr Pavlenko gave them hope with a 39th-minute header.

Roman Pavlyuchenko made it two with five minutes remaining to set up a nervy finish, but OM held on.