Zenit St. Petersburg and CSKA Moscow were among four teams to clinch their places in the knockout stages of the Europa League on Thursday, continuing Russia's strong recent showings in Europe's second-tier club competition.
Zenit, which won the tournament in 2008 when it was called the UEFA Cup, survived a late fightback to win 3-2 at Hajduk Split, while 2005 winner CSKA scored three times in eight second-half minutes to beat Italy's Palermo 3-1.
Belarusian champion BATE Borisov beat Sheriff of Moldova 3-1 to advance for the first time, while Stuttgart went through after a 3-0 win at Getafe.
Tiago's spectacular late goal gave defending champion Atletico Madrid a 2-1 win at Rosenborg and Liverpool beat Napoli 3-1, but Sporting Lisbon and Manchester City each missed a chance to advance when they lost 3-1 away from home.
Sporting lost captain Abel to a 77th-minute red card and then conceded twice to lose at Belgium's Ghent, while Manuel Arboleda and Mateusz Mozdzen scored in the last four minutes to give Lech Poznan victory over City in coach Jose Maria Bakero's first match in charge of the Polish side.
Aleksei Ionov put Zenit ahead in the 32nd in Croatia before Szabolcs Huszti and Alessandro Rosina stretched the lead with penalty kicks. Huszti scored first time in the 47th but Rosina needed a rebound from goalkeeper Danijel Subasic's save four minutes later.
Marin Ljubicic and Ante Vukusic scored to make it uncomfortable for Zenit, but the Russian side leads Group G with a maximum 12 points - eight clear of AEK Athens and Anderlecht, who drew 1-1.
CSKA trailed to a 10th-minute goal by Massimo Maccarone but kept up its 100 percent Group F record to secure a place among this season's last 32 teams.
Palermo's Antonio Nocerino was sent off for a second yellow card in the 31st and Japan midfielder Keisuke Honda equalized 16 minutes later. Tomas Necid then struck twice in five minutes, his second goal coming from a turn and shot that went in off the post.
Sparta Prague won 3-1 at Lausanne in the other Group F match to take firm control of second place.
Vitali Rodionov, Aleksandr Pavlov and Renan Bressan scored the goals that took BATE to 10 points in Group E and a decisive seven-point advantage over third-place AZ Alkmaar.
The top two teams from each group advance and, with three points for a win, there are only two rounds of pool matches remaining.
Dynamo Kiev is favorite to advance with BATE after a 2-0 win over AZ.
Atletico, which beat Fulham 2-1 in last season's final, first led through Sergio Aguero's fourth-minute goal but conceded a 52nd-minute equalizer to Markus Henriksen.
With six minutes left, Tiago beat three players and hit a long-range shot past goalkeeper Daniel Orlund to leave Atletico in second place in Group B - a point behind Bayer Leverkusen, which beat Aris 1-0.
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard went on as a substitute and scored a hat trick in the last 15 minutes to give his team a third straight win for the first time in almost 14 months.
Gerrard equalized Ezequiel Lavezzi's early goal in the 76th, scored an 88th-minute penalty and then lifted the ball over the goalkeeper from Lucas Leiva's pass.
Liverpool has eight points, three more than Steaua Bucharest and five more than Napoli and Utrecht.
Sporting had won its previous three matches but conceded twice in the last 11 minutes. Sporting leads Group C with nine points, four more than Lille - which drew 2-2 at Levski Sofia.
Manchester City seemed to have earned a draw after Emmanuel Adebayor equalized Dimitrije Injac's 30th-minute opener but City defender Dedryck Boyata's headed clearance bounced off Arboleda to make it 2-1 in the 86th minute.
Mozdzen then scored with a fierce shot from the edge of the area in injury time to hand City's expensively assembled squad a third straight loss in all competitions.
"At the moment everything is against us," City manager Roberto Mancini said. "We have 20 good players but sometimes you can lose a game you do not deserve to lose."
Lech Poznan shares the Group A lead with City on seven points. Juventus was three points back and can still advance but was held to a fourth consecutive draw in the Europa League, 0-0 against Salzburg.
"There's still some hope but it's not going to be easy to win at Poznan and then beat Manchester," Juventus coach Luigi Del Neri said.
While Juventus captain Alessandro Del Piero missed several chances, fellow striker Amauri again failed to make an impact, which will only increase speculation that the Turin side will try to replace him during the January transfer window.
The draw also provided little for Michel Platini to cheer for, with the former Juventus standout and current UEFA president watching at Stadio Olimpico.
Paris Saint-Germain would also have qualified with a win but surrendered the Group J lead with a tame 0-0 draw against Borussia Dortmund.
The German side missed several late chances to win the game, leaving PSG second to Sevilla in the standings. The Spanish club, which won the 2006 and '07 UEFA Cups, beat Karpaty Lviv 4-0 to go to nine points, one more than PSG.
PAOK Thessaloniki beat visiting Villarreal 1-0 to climb two places to the top of Group D, while PSV Eindhoven beat visiting Debrecen in Group I to eliminate the Hungarian team.
