Unfortunately the Czech players were just not able to book in a place the next round of the Euro 2008 despite their hearty effort and their 3-2 short lost over Turkey during the last game of their group last Sunday.

The Czech team will be packing and going back home earlier than expected even their Coach Karel Bruckner could not believe they had lost a good chance to move forward. “The third goal was nothing but a crumple. I can’t explain that,” Bruckner said. “I simply couldn’t prevent that. We should have done better.”

At the inauguration game the Czech Republic managed a favorable win against co-host Switzerland which lifted their hopes of a secure stay in the tournament; that golden goal was scored by goalkeeper Petr Cech. Nevertheless; during the second game the Czechs fell to Portugal – one of the favorites to win the Euro Cup – by 3 goals to 1 and this certainly changed the entire panorama.

On the other hand, Turkey’s outstanding win was the last one for their Coach Bruckner who will be retiring at the end of the completion.

Another factor that ruined the Czech Republic’s changes was when the Captain Tomas Rosicky had to leave before the end of the game due to an knee tendon injury without him and without Karel Poborksy, Pavel Nedved and Vladmir Smicer the team had a fragile midfield which we all saw.

Rosicky had been the team’s leader, his vision, creativity and technical ability is measured by is Coach Bruckner as unique. David Jarolim and Marek Matejovsky tried to play in Rosicky’s position and their response was fair but his absence was noticed.

“We didn’t have another player who was as good,” Bruckner said Monday about Rosicky. “We had a problem in the middle of the field.”

As Rosincky was not to play in the following games Coach Bruckner made the decision to shift his strategies to a five-man midfield following one striker, which was overflowing by Milan Baros once and Koller two times. This is certainly Bruckner’s trade mark as during the Euro 2004 in Portugal the Czech Republic won great praise for their offensive attack, approaching in the wake of each group match to win, counting the games against favorite Netherlands and Germany and eventually getting to the final four.

For the Euro 2008 Bruckner relied on Koller but the trick did not work this time as when Bruckner replaced him against Portugal for Vaclav Sverkos he scored the decisive goal. Moreover, Baros is far away from being in great form, having botched to score for Portsmouth in the preceding season.

In the game against Turkey, the Czechs were winning 2-1 with only three minutes left to play, Petr Cech give Nihat Kahveci a pass to equal the score before scoring  the winning goal for Turkey. “Big victories and big defeats are all part of the same story,” a rational Bruckner said. “Those were beautiful years.”

Still it is an uncertainty who will occupy the place of Coach Bruckner; and the team does have an international friendly game next August 20th against England. Nevertheless; the Czech football federation Vlastimil Kostal has stated that they will come to a decision before the end of the June.

About the Author

Ally White is a top senior copy writer for the EURO 2008 games as well as the top ranking online bookmaker: www.instantactionsports.com/uk/

Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety on your site, make sure to leave all links in place and do not modify any of the content.

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