Quickfire Lazio ease through

Lazio's midfileder Fabio Liverani, seen here February 2004.

Serie A side Lazio booked their place in the inaugural group stages of the UEFA Cup after comfortably winning their first round, second leg tie at home to Metalurg Donetsk.

A 3-0 victory over the Ukrainians in Rome completed a 6-0 aggregate win for Domenico Caso's men.

The Italians scored their three goals inside the first 25 minutes with midfielder Fabio Liverani scoring twice and striker Roberto Muzzi grabbing the other.

Caso said he was delighted with his team's performance in the first half which enabled him to rest several players for the second period.

"I'm very happy because the boys played the first half exactly as I had asked," he said.

"They showed great maturity and were very professional. Sometimes, when you have a commanding lead from the first leg it's easy to let your concentration slip.

"But we took the game to them early on and put our chances away. The players were excellent. The tie was dead then so I made some changes and was able to look at a few options."

Liverani's left-footed shot from close range put Lazio ahead in the 10th minute before Muzzi's superb curler doubled the home side's advantage.

Liverani completed the scoring with a crisp finish after an excellent dribble into the penalty box by veteran striker Paolo Di Canio.

Lazio took their foot off the pedal in the second half, conserving energy for Sunday's league clash away to Atalanta.

Meanwhile, Lazio's Serie A rivals Udinese were dumped out of the competition, despite winning 1-0 in a bad-tempered clash at home to Greek side Panionios.

Stefano Mauri scored the only goal with a deflected 20-yard strike, but the Greeks went through to the next round 3-2 on aggregate.

Udinese's Czech Republic midfielder Marek Jankulovski was sent off in the second half for kicking the ball at a Panionios player as he lay on the ground injured.

The hosts also thought they should have had a penalty in the first half when Antonio Di Natale fell in the box under a heavy challenge, but Czech referee Michal Benes waved play on.

Benes had to be escorted from the pitch by security officials in a bid to avoid a repeat of the scenes in Roma's Champions League clash against Dynamo Kiev earlier this month when referee Anders Frisk was struck by a coin thrown from the crowd.