It was never going to be easy going deep into the Urals to face Amkar Perm on their home patch, a plastic pitch, but Fulham made light work of it but then again almost threw it away in a last few minutes of madness.
With Danny Murphy on the injury list and Paul Konchesky, Clint Dempsey and Bobby Zamora not playing, the starting eleven had something of an unfamiliar look to it.
Indeed, the emphasis, and who are we to argue, appeared to be on making sure we didn`t concede rather than adding tour two goal advantage.
It was a plan that worked superbly well, despite some scares that saw Mark Schwarzer fly to our rescue but then in the 90th minute the levee was finally breached when Martin Kushev scored for the home side heading home from close range.
From being in complete control it was suddenly a backs to the wall job. Amkar Perm knew a second goal would see them through on away goals and they so nearly did exactly that when Nikolai Zhilyaev shot over the bar from close range.
Perhaps all this late nervousness would have been unnecessary if Seol had taken full advantage of a chance he had but an extra touch saw a shot screwed the wrong side of the post.
Nevertheless, Fulham have navigated a tricky qualification process and wait to see who their opposition will be in the group stages.
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