Joy for Ghana, despair for Czech Rep

Czech Republic came into the World Cup as a dark horse. Their ruthless performance against the USA (3-0) underlined the fact that they could be a team to look out for in the tournament. They looked destined to join Italy from this group in the second round.

Then things took a wrong turn for the Czechs – they lost to a very good Ghana team (2-0) in the second match. That result meant today’s final game against Italy was one which Czech Rep had to win to proceed further.

Unfortunately, they failed to raise their game at all and crashed out 2-0 to the Italians who topped the group.

And who is in second spot? Yes, it’s the first-timers from Africa, Ghana. Many thought that they were out of their depth at the World Cup after that sound defeat to the Italians in the first game (2-0). But full credit to them, they gave an excellent performance against Czech Rep to defeat them 2-0 in the second match.

So coming into the final day of group matches, all they needed to do was win over the USA and hope that the Italians at least hold Czech Rep to a draw.

The results at the end went in their favour for they beat the USA 2-1, winning the match through a soft penalty, and at the other game Czech Rep capitulated to a well-organised Italy.

So what went wrong for the Czechs? They have had a bad World Cup. They came into the tournament with striker Milan Baros injured and he was out of the first two matches, although he played today. Then in the very first game, their main striker Jan Koller limped out injured and did not make it to the field today.

So this team was without its two main strikers throughout its group matches. And today, they also had their central defender Tomas Ujfalusi out suspended. And if you thought that was it, they were a man down in the 46th minute when defender Jan Polak was red-carded. By then, they were already a goal down.

To reorganize the team, the Czechs then took out wide attacking player Karel Probosky and relied heavily on Tomas Rosicky, Pavel Nedved, and the unfit Milan Baros to win the game.

They never had that chance against the Italians. I thought Fabio Cannavaro and Gennaro Gattuso were brilliant for the Italians today. However Francesco Totti was pitiful. His team-mates had to carry him for the full 90 minutes. He is obviously unfit and deserves to be dropped.

And as for Ghana, they played just well to edge out the Americans, winning 2-1, but disappointingly for them, they will be without their star midfielder Michael Essien in their second round game against Brazil.

So, at the end, one ranked outsider from Africa has disposed a form team from Europe and will join the technically superior Italy into the second stage. As I see it, I think Italy will progress further as they do look like a team difficult to beat – they play Australia in round two. Mind you, they have now gone unbeaten for 21 games in all competitions since October 2004. And they are still undefeated in normal time at the World Cup since 1986!