6.07.2008

Vaclav Sverkos returns to the goal and Petr Cech is hero again


Vaclav Sverkos is 24 years old and already had played in the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria leagues as centre forward. But Sverkos had been two years! Yes! Two seasons without scoring goals in official matches. Nevertheless, the entrance of the FC Banik Ostrava player in the inaugural match of the EURO 2008, gave the victory at his Czech Republic 1-0 against Switzerland in Basel.

The first half was not very good. Behrami was most disquieting in the first minutes, soon Frei armed several shoots from outside of the penalty area that managed to control Petr Cech.

The first half was not more than that. Little interesting. We thought “are the nerves of the debut? So, we have to wait 8 matches and 16 debuts to see good football?”

In the second half Hakan Yakin, which had entered by Frei, took advantage of his freshness to troubled Cech again, the best one of the match. But, were so good the Petr interventions? Was Swiss who turned him the star of the match? Any goalkeeper is able to clear the long distance shoots of the host team?

At 25 minutes, a clear of the Czech defense and a Swiss error caused that Sverkos (entered by the little the gravitated Jan Koller) has left alone in front of the goalkeeper Diego Benaglio and scored the single goal of the match.

Resting 11 minutes, Switzerland, that almost always had the control of the ball, had the most dangerous play. Tranquilo Barnetta shot a powerful shot that cleared Cech, bounce that Vonlanthen shot in the crossbar.

Czech Republic was only the goal. The historical Sverkos goal. But they have three key points and four days to improve the poor performance. Switzerland, that was more than Czechs during the match, finished with empty hands and with the obligation to defeat Portugal and Turkey if they want to be between the eight best teams of the EURO 2008.

To the margin of the poor match watched, it is worth to emphasize that it was a pleasure see fair play during all the time, few fouls and that the Czechs never tried to delay the match after putting itself in advantage. For that reason Welcome EURO 2008!

The lineups:
Switzerland: Benaglio, Magnin, Senderos, Lichtsteiner (Vonlanthen 75), Inler, Frei (Hakan Yakin 46), Streller, Fernandes, Barnetta, Behrami (Derdiyok 84), Muller.

Czech Republic: Cech, Grygera, Polak, Galasek, Jankulovski, Sionko (Vlcek 83), Koller (Sverkos 56), Jarolim (Kovac 87), Plasil, Ujfalusi, Rozehnal.

The goal: 70 min; Vaclav Sverkos (CZE)

Yellow Cards: Magnin, Vonlanthen, Barnetta (SUI)

2 comments:

AD said...

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avisame un saludoo

devo

Anonymous said...

The first half was basically a warm up - a get to know - between the teams. I expected a goal from Behrami, but he could not make it.

The negative aspect was the early injury from Frei who now will miss the entire tournament. I felt bad for him when watching him leaving the pitch crying openly.

As supporter of Italian football, I was cheering for both because there were 5 players from the Italian Soccer Serie A in this match. Happy to know that Czech won. Hopefully, Switzerland can make it next time.