Dashed hopes

According to him it was home matches like the one with Armenia that impeded the Czech team's progression through qualification rounds. "It was mainly our low productivity in home games that caused us a lot of trouble. We only won very few points at home and there's no way we could qualify with those," said Petr after the match in Turin.
The Czech national team made a very decent entrance when they took the lead after Libor Kozak's goal. "We definitely took them by surprise. The Italian team did maintain the upper hand but we stayed in the lead until the interval. But when they then scored two goals in a rapid succession they made sure they wouldn't make a mistake. We, on the contrary, weren't doing so well anymore," said Petr with regret.