15 October 2014 | 21:36

Czech team wins Kazakhstan in Euro 2016 qualifiying round

Czech football players celebrate their victory. ©Vesti.kz

Czech national team has won over Kazakhstan in the UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying round, Tengrinews reports citing Vesti.kz. The football match ended up with a score of 4:2 in favor of the Czech team.

They began to lead 13 minutes into the match when Sparta Prague midfielder Borek Dockal received a short pass from Daniel Kolar and scored the first goal.

One minute before the break, Czech forward David Lafata doubled the advantage of the Czech team.

In the second time, despite Kazakhstan’s growing pressure on the Czechs, Ladislav Krejci scored the third goal for the Czech team 56 minutes into the match.

Yuri Logvinenko returned the goal for Kazakhstan on the 84th minute followed by Tomas Necid’s shot on the 88th minute making the score 3:1 in favor of the Czechs.

Then, Yuri Logvinenko scored his second and final goal for Kazakhstan from a corner on the 91st minute.

Commenting on the match, Czech football coach Pavel Vrba said that Kazakhstan showed a good game. Czechs played quite well in the first half of the game, but in the second, the Czech players started losing concentration as the Kazakh players were intensifying their pressure, he said. Overall, he believs both teams could have got higher scores.

“In the first half we were actually playing well but in the second, when the score went to 3-0, we started losing concentration – you saw the consequences of that. The score is a fair reflection of the match in my opinion. In the second half Kazakhstan upped their game and in the end both teams could have scored more. (…) Kazakhstan are good going forward, though, and I really thought the No9 [Bauyrzhan Islamkhan] had a good game,” he is quoted as saying by uefa.com.

After the game, Czech forward David Lafata told Sport.idnez.cz how they were coping with an artificial turf at Astana Arena stadium. “Although we managed to hold two trainings at this grass, it took some time to adjust to it. But we expected it to be much longer. Sometimes we failed to make passes. Still, there is some difference between artificial and natural grass,” he said.

Earlier before the game, the Czech players were unhappy about the artificial turf at Astana Arena stadium that they were not used to.

Before their flight to Astana, captain of the Czech national football team Tomas Rosicky told Sport.idnez.cz that it was hard to predict how the game would go, because he usually did not train or play on an artificial turf.

Defender of the Czech national football team David Limbersky also criticized the stadium's coating. "We expected an artificial field of the latest generation, but this is just a carpet,” he said after the first training at Astana Arena Stadium.

Forward Tomas Necid who plays for Dutch PEC Zwolle is used to playing on artificial surf. “The fied at Zwolle is a very different field, it is much better. Yes, it is hard to play on it, but this is not what we saw in Astana. But I am still convinced that it is not so bad. All in all, it could have been much worse,” he said.

By winning over Kazakhstan, the Czech team became No. 1 in Group A with 9 points. The Czech Republic has won all three of its qualifying matches os far beating Kazakhstan, Turkey and the Netherlands.

The Kazakh team still has only one point after losing to the Netherlands and playing a draw with Latvia.

In the next game on November 16, the Czech Republic will play against Iceland, and Kazakhstan will face Turkey.

By Assel Satubaldina

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