Juventus eased through to the Champions League group stages after a 1-1 draw at Artmedia Bratislava yesterday completed a 5-1 aggregate victory.

Juve, out of Europe for two seasons following their involvement in an Italian match-fixing scandal, named a relatively strong team despite winning the third qualifying round first leg 4-0.

Claudio Ranieri's side went behind when Artmedia midfielder Branislav Fodrek netted with a stunning bicycle kick after 14 minutes but they were soon level as Amauri scored his first competitive goal for the club.

The Brazilian-born striker, a close-season signing from Palermo, hung in the air before powering home a header from Czech winger Pavel Nedved's cross on 25 minutes.

Amauri had earlier hit the post with a header and could easily have bagged a hat-trick.

Slovakian champions Artmedia, who reached the Champions League group stages in 2005, showed much more ambition than they did in the first leg but Juve's aggregate win was never in doubt. Juve's last Champions League appearance was a quarter-final defeat by Arsenal two years ago after which they were stripped of their 2006 Italian title, banned from Europe and demoted to Serie B.

The twice European champions, who visit Fiorentina on Sunday in their Serie A opener, will be looking forward to tomorrow's Champions League group stage draw after finishing third last term in their first season back in the Italian top flight.

Barcelona also made it safely through to the group stages despite losing 1-0 at Wisla Krakow.

The Spanish giants went into this third qualifying round second leg tie on the back of a 4-0 first leg win over the Polish champions and qualified 4-1 on aggregate.

Wisla's Brazilian centreback Cleber scored the only goal of the encounter in the 52nd minute, but it wasn't enough to turn around their gaping first leg deficit.

Having ensured their participation in Europe's top club competition with all the prestige and revenue that that brings, the Catalan club can now concentrate on their opening league game against CD Numancia at the weekend.

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