Osasuna capped a tremendous Primera Liga season by beating Valencia 2-1 to clinch Champions League qualification for the first time in the club's history.

The hosts knew a victory would be enough to clinch fourth place ahead of Sevilla, while the visitors needed to better Real Madrid's result to clinch second place and an automatic Champions League spot, making it an anxious first half at the Estadio El Sadar.

Two goals in five minutes at the start of the second period from Savo Milosevic and David Lopez settled their nerves, and although a superb stoppage-time free-kick from David Villa had Osasuna sweating late on, they managed to hold on.

The early exchanges produced little to test either goalkeeper, save for a couple of long shots from Pierre Webo that were easily held by Valencia's Santiago Canizares.

It took the intervention of the leading Spanish marksman in the league to seriously threaten an opening goal.

Villa, looking to move level in the scoring charts with Barcelona's Samuel Eto'o, was denied by a fine one-handed save from Ricardo Lopez after picking the ball up 25 yards out and attempting to curl a shot past the former Manchester United goalkeeper.

Osasuna came out a different team after the interval and managed to break the deadlock within three minutes of the restart.

Ludovic Delporte tormented Miguel before crossing from deep on the left, his centre perfect for Milosevic to rise above his marker and head firmly past Canizares, who was rooted to the spot.

Then, just four minutes later, Lopez made it two after more good work on the left by Delporte.

Portuguese right-back Miguel managed to get a foot in this time but only succeeded in knocking the ball across his area, where Webo flicked it on for Lopez to drill low into the far corner from the right side of the box and send the home crowd wild.

Canizares was again called into action in the 58th minute when Osasuna captain Lopez broke from midfield to collect Delporte's left-wing cross and flick a low shot across goal the veteran keeper did well to turn behind at full stretch.

Villa was again denied by Ricardo on 70 minutes, when the former Real Zaragoza striker was allowed time to shoot on the edge of the area, but once more the Osasuna keeper was equal to it, turning the ball over the crossbar.

With eight minutes to snatch second place off Real Madrid, Valencia went closer still to pulling a goal back.

Mista's shot deflected to Villa inside the area and he cut the ball back to Mario Regueiro, whose first-time strike flashed past Ricardo only to hit the underside of the bar before being cleared.

Two minutes into stoppage-time, though, Valencia won a free-kick 25 yards out when Inaki Munoz brought down Mista, and Villa finally beat Lopez with a superb curling strike into the top corner that took him level with Eto'o on 25 goals.

But it was too little, too late, and Osasuna held on to join Valencia in next season's preliminary rounds of Europe's premier club competition.