Manchester City came from behind against Club Brugge to reach the Champions League knockout phase, where they were safely joined by Paris Saint-Germain as Arsenal qualified directly for the last 16 Wednesday in the final round of league-phase matches.
Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille and Aston Villa also followed Liverpool and Barcelona in securing top-eight finishes to skip the new play-off round.
On a dramatic night in which only two of the closing 18 games were dead rubbers, City got the win they needed to avoid an embarrassing exit with a nervy 3-1 victory over Brugge.
PSG, who defeated City 4-2 last week, produced an emphatic display in a 4-1 triumph at Stuttgart.
Arsenal only needed a point to wrap up a last-16 berth and goals from Jorginho and Ethan Nwaneri gave them a 2-1 victory at Girona.
Inter finished fourth in the standings by seeing off 10-man Monaco 3-0, while Atletico made it five straight Champions League wins with a 4-1 thumping of Salzburg in Austria.
Bayer Leverkusen also completed the job, beating Sparta Prague 2-0, as Lille were the only French side to seal a top-eight slot thanks to a 6-1 thrashing of Feyenoord.
Villa snuck into eighth place in their first appearance in the competition in 42 years, as Morgan Rogers' hat-trick helped them to a 4-2 win over Celtic.
Atalanta, Borussia Dortmund, holders Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and AC Milan all ended one point off the top eight.
The other teams in Friday's play-off draw are PSV, Benfica, Monaco, Brest, Feyenoord, Juventus, Celtic, Sporting Lisbon and Brugge.
The new 36-team format provided plenty of tension, but all the fancied sides at least finished in the top 24 to stay in the competition.
City, European champions two seasons ago, were in serious danger of an awful season hitting a new low when they fell behind to Raphael Onyedika's strike on the stroke of half-time at the Etihad.
But Mateo Kovacic waltzed through the center of the Brugge side to equalize shortly after the break before Joel Ordonez's own goal put City in front.
Savinho's late strike added some gloss to the scoreline as City manager Pep Guardiola narrowly avoided the earliest exit from the competition in his career.
Brugge, thanks to results in other games, clung onto the final play-off spot despite their defeat.
PSG would have been knocked out by a loss in Germany but were never in any danger as Bradley Barcola's brave header and two goals from Ousmane Dembele put them 3-0 up on Stuttgart inside 35 minutes.
Dembele, who played a starring role as a substitute against City, completed his hat-trick in the second period before Chris Fuehrich's consolation.
PSG, semi-finalists last season, finished 15th to reach the knockout stage for a 13th consecutive season, after having been outside the top 24 after six matches.
A much-changed Liverpool finished top despite losing 3-2 at PSV Eindhoven, as second-placed Barca drew 2-2 with Atalanta, who finished an agonizing ninth.
RESULTS
Sporting 1 (Harder 77) Bologna 1 (Pobega 21)
Man City 3 (Kovacic 53, Ordonez 62-og, Savinho 77) Club Brugge 1 (Onyedika 45)
Villa 4 (Rogers 3, 5, 90+1, Watkins 60) Celtic 2 (Idah 36, 38)
Juventus 0 Benfica 2 (Pavlidis 16, Kokcu 80)
Young Boys 0 Red Star Belgrade 1 (Kanga 69)
Inter 3 (Martinez 4-P, 16, 67) Monaco 0
Girona 1 (Danjuma 28) Arsenal 2 (Jorginho 38-P, Nwaneri 42)
Dortmund 3 (Guirassy 17, 44, Bensebaini 79) Shakhtar 1 (Marlon 50)
Dinamo Zagreb 2 (Baturina 19, Pjaca 60) Milan 1 (Pulisic 53)
Brest 0 Real Madrid 3 (Rodrygo 27, 78, Bellingham 56)
Bayern 3 (Mueller 8, Kane 63, Coman 84) Slovan Bratislava 1 (Tolic 90)
Leverkusen 2 (Wirtz 32, Tella 64) Sparta Prague 0
Barcelona 2 (Yamal 47, Araujo 72) Atalanta 2 (Ederson 67, Pasalic 79)
Salzburg 1 (Daghim 90+1) Atletico 4 (Simeone 5, Griezmann 13, 45+1, Llorente 63)
PSV 3 (Bakayoko 35, Saibari 45, Pepi 45+6) Liverpool 2 (Gakpo 28-P, Elliott 40)
Stuttgart 1 (Fuehrich 77) PSG 4 (Barcola 6, Dembele 17, 35, 54)
Sturm Graz 1 (Malic 42) Leipzig 0
Lille 6 (Sahraoui 4, Trauner 38-og, 76-og, Gomes 57, David 74, Cabella 80) Feyenoord 1 (Gimenez 14)
