The Czech national soccer team has had a cruel wake-up call at the World Cup after an impressive 3-0 victory against the United States in its first round match.

The team suffered a surprising 2-0 loss to Ghana in its second game on June 17, turning dreams of advancing high in the tournament into to hopes that it might just even be able to advance from its first round group.

"We've gotten into the worst possible situation," said midfielder Pavel Nedvěd. "We don't have enough points, we don't have players and we're going into a game against Italy."

Following the shocking debacle against Ghana, the Czechs have to beat Italy in the final round game June 22 in Hamburg to rescue their World Cup campaign.

This looks like a tall order given the fact that Italy is a traditional soccer powerhouse that remains unbeaten in Germany after two games. To make matters worse, two of the team's star strikers who sat out the game against Ghana due to injury probably won't be able to play against Italy.

The absence of Jan Koller, who scored the opening goal against America but couldn't finish the game because of a thigh strain, and also Milan Baroš, whose injured foot has so far kept him out of playing in Germany, made the Czechs look helpless against Ghana.

The Africans needed only 66 seconds to beat the Czech defense and score the tournament's fastest goal. Unmarked striker Gyan Asamoah easily netted a pass in the Czech box past goalie Petr Čech.

This got the game off to a nightmarish start, considering the team had planned to not give up a goal in the entire contest.

"We planned to do our best not to concede a goal," head coach Karel Brückner said after the game.

The early goal ruined not only the team's game plan, but also its confidence.

"Instead of sitting back and breaking out to quick attacks, we had to start chasing Ghana's players all over the pitch, and we got disorganized," Nedvěd said.

Without Koller and Baroš, the offense was lost. And the defense wasn't able to prevent the Africans from creating one scoring opportunity after another.

In the 65th minute, an already bad situation became worse when defender Tomáš Ujfaluši committed a foul in the box and was sent off the field. The Africans were awarded a penalty shot, which they missed.

Nevertheless, it was clear Ghana was in control, and only a magnificent performance by goalie Čech kept the game from becoming an embarrassment.

Facing constant attack, Čech was able to keep his team in the game.

"When I was bouncing one attack after another, I thought that we would be able to boot in a goal from a counter attack that would save the game for us," Čech said.

The Czechs had their first major scoring chance in overtime, when substitute midfielder Libor Sionko headed the ball under the crossbar. The shot was blocked, but it was too late already. Ghana destroyed any hopes of a successful comeback when it scored a second goal in the 82nd minute of play.

After the second goal, head coach Brückner told the players to defend the loss instead of trying to score.

"I did not want to risk other goals," he said after the game.

The ratio of goals scored and conceded could ultimately determine which two from the four-member round robin group advance to the second round. If any of the teams have the same record at the end of the round, the one with the greatest goal difference will go forward.

Italy is leading with four points, followed by the Czechs and Ghana, both of which have three. The U.S. has one.