Former European Cup winners Celtic got their Champions League campaign off to a flying start on Wednesday, easing to a 4-0 away win over Lithuania's Kaunas in the first leg of their second qualifying round tie.

The Glasgow club, UEFA Cup finalists last season, were the only former winners involved in the night's 14 matches and look set for a third-round meeting with MTK Budapest after the Hungarians claimed a 3-1 first-leg advantage over HJK Helsinki.

Celtic took the lead through Swedish striker Henrik Larsson after 13 minutes. It was his 30th European goal and equalled the record for a player with a British team held by Leeds United's Peter Lorimer and Liverpool's Ian Rush.

Fellow-striker Chris Sutton, banned from Celtic's first five league games, got the second after half an hour while second-half goals by Shaun Maloney and Liam Miller wrapped it up.

Relieved Celtic manager Martin O'Neill said: "It's the time of the season where I felt we could have been very vulnerable. Now having scored four goals we are obviously in a very strong position and I expect us to go through."

"We played today against one of Europe's best teams and to be honest we were a bit afraid of them," said Kaunas coach Siarhei Barouski" Austria's Graz AK all but secured a third round meeting with last year's quarter-finalists and four-times times winners Ajax Amsterdam by thrashing SK Tirana 5-1 in Albania.

After falling behind early on, the Austrians hit back with two goals from Ilko Naumoski and one each from Mario Bazina, Rene Aufhauser and Joachim Standfest as Tirana looked a shadow of the team that knocked out Dinamo Tbilisi last week.

Wisla Krakow also hit five as they thumped Omonia Nicosia 5-2.

LATE PENALTIES

Two goals for Maciej Zurawski and one each for Tomasz Frankowski, Marcin Baszczynski and Daniel Dubicki had the Poles flying but two late penalties by Reiner Rauffmann gave the Cypriot side a glimmer of hope for the return.

Rosenborg Trondheim, Champions League regulars with several big-name scalps to their name in recent years, had to work hard for a 1-0 away win at Ireland's Bohemians.

However, Azar Karadas's 35th-minute goal puts the Norwegians firmly in the driving seat to secure a third-round clash with Spanish heavyweights Deportivo Coruna.

An even more impressive away win came at CSKA Moscow where Macedonia's Vardar Skopje had a 2-1 success.

The Russians seemed on top until Vardar midfielder Vlatko Grozdanovski put the visitors ahead after 54 minutes and Brazilian Oliveira Dos Santos doubled the lead 10 minutes later.

A last-minute penalty by Dmitry Kirichenko put CSKA back into the tie but coach Valery Gazzayev remained unimpressed.

"It was just an awful performance by the entire team tonight, but I can assure you that we'll come out fighting in the second leg," he said.

Partizan Belgrade, European Cup runners-up way back in 1966, remain a long way short of challenging for the trophy again as they were held to a 1-1 home draw by Sweden's Djurgarden.

PASSIONATE CROWD

The passionate capacity crowd of 32,000 were nevertheless treated to a pulsating match where Sasa Ilic gave the Serbia and Montenegro champions a deserved 59th-minute lead only for striker Rene Mekondele to equalise 13 minutes later.

Danish champions FC Copenhagen had little difficulty with Sliema Wanderers, beating the Maltese visitors 4-1, while Zilina edged Maccabi Tel Aviv 1-0 in Slovakia.

Maccabi will play the return leg at a neutral venue because of the unstable political situation in Israel. Earlier on Wednesday UEFA decided that the ruling would remain in force until at least mid-August, meaning it would be in place should the Israelis advance to a third-round tie against England's Chelsea.

The second legs of all 14 games will be played next Wednesday with the third round ties taking place on August 12/13 and August 26/27.

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