Before you go accusing Bruckner, get your facts straight: Sirl was in the sqaud, but was injured and that is why he was not part of the team (just like Pudil, who was also in and then missed out through injury).

However, Bruckner reacted intelligently when the tactic wasn’t working (against Switzerland) and brought on Sverkos early on (57th minute), who won the game for us. Against Portugal, you also can’t say the tactic chosen (only Baros from the start, no Koller at all until the 74th minute) did not work: the Czechs played a great first half against a very good Portuguese team. In the second half, Koller’s presence did not help a lot.

Then Bruckner changed the tactic again, and it worked: Koller played very well against the Turks, and the game was practically won, until the Czechs collapsed. So why did they lose?

1. Cech’s mistake. Cech made the sort of mistake a goalie like him makes once every ten years. Sadly, he did it in the 87th minute when the Czechs were 2-1 up. He himself said that psychologically, it completely brought the team down and was responsible for the third goal (which likely was slightly off-side, but that is neither here nor there now). Of course you can’ty blame the keeper alone – the team as a whole should have killed the game off at 2-0 – but the fact remains that it is unlikely the Czechs would have lost, had Cech not made that mistake.

2. The Turks. They never gave up and just kept coming. Terim told them after the 2-0 to just go for it, because it does not matter if they lose 2-0 or 4-0. Often, a team doing this gets hit on the counter attack, but not this time. They kept going, kept believing and legitimately won the game.

3. Defense. Just as you say: the defense was all over the place, I was particularly disappointed with Jankulovski and Grygera, who are both great players on their day – but this was not their day.

4. Bad luck. You need luck in football, and had Polak’s shot at 2-0 up gone in, as opposed to against the post, that would have been the end of it. Plus the Czechs should have had a penalty towards the end. (This is not meant to be an excuse for the defeat – this does happen and bad decisions go both ways. For example, the Swiss should have had a penalty against the Czechs.)

I don’t think the older players were to blame. Koller played excellently against the Turks, and Galasek was OK as well in this tournament. A bit anonymous against the Turks, but excellent against Portugal, esp. in the first half. Ran like a 25-year old.

Where do we go from here? Koller, Galasek and possibly Jankulovski will stop playing for the national side. The first half against Portugal showed that we can play well against top opposition even without Koller (especially when Rosicky comes back). Galasek has been fading for the past two years or so and can also be replaced. Jankulovski would be a big loss (not the way he played against the Turks, but the way he is able to play). We’ll see. In any event, the glory years of Nedved & Co. are over.