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Youth movement

Loss to Argentina in final caps unprecedented run of junior national team

By František Bouc
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
July 25th, 2007 issue

ISIFA
Czech keeper Radek Petr celebrates with his teammates after winning the FIFA U-20 World Cup semifinal versus Austria July 18.
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For two minutes, the Czech Republic sensed what it would feel like to be the world champion of soccer.
With one hour of play completed in the July 22 final of the Under-20 World Cup between Argentina and the young, underdog Czechs, striker Martin Fenin received a pass in the opponent’s box, shielded the ball from defender Frederico Fazio and then turned, hammering a left-footed shot past Argentina’s diving goalie, Sergio Romero.
The Czechs took a 1–0 lead and the ensuing celebration was intense, with a teammate flinging Fenin to the ground and all 10 outfield players diving on top.
At that moment, the stunning campaign of the Under-20 national team at this tournament in Canada reached its peak. The Czechs stood only 30 minutes away from winning their first-ever world championship in soccer. Twice before, the senior national teams played in World Cup finals: the 1934 tournament in Italy and the 1962 championship in Chile. Both times, the Czechoslovaks lost.
When Fenin scored, the whole nation hoped the team could hold the lead and win the championship. Virtually overnight, the previously unknown juniors became national stars, drawing a large viewing audience and making front-page headlines in the Czech media.
But the joy lasted only two minutes. The excited Czechs failed to cover striker Sergio Aguero and the unguarded Argentinean easily sent the ball past goalie Radek Petr into the net.
After that quick rebuttal from Argentina, the Czechs never recovered their stride.
“It was a key moment of the final,” Fenin said after the game. “It seems we got scared of the lead. Perhaps we couldn’t stop thinking about how close we were to the ultimate triumph.”
Although Argentina, the defending world champion, controlled the game from the very beginning, they began to dominate only after tying the match. The Czechs had other scoring opportunities in the early stages of the game, such as when defender Marek Suchý hit the post of Romero’s goal.
“After equalizing, the Argentinean players unleashed their full force and it was difficult to stop them,” said Ivan Hašek, former player on the national team and now manager of the French club AS Saint-Étienne.
With only four minutes remaining in the game, Mauro Zarate’s low shot through traffic from the edge of the penalty box caught Petr unprepared, allowing the game’s deciding goal to be scored easily.
“I didn’t expect the shot and saw it too late,” a frustrated Petr said after the game.
Teamwork hailed
It was ironic that the Czechs fell short in the end because of bad luck and a goalkeeping error. During their impressive run through the tournament, a great deal of good luck and impressive saves by Petr paved the Czechs’ way to the final.
In the playoff round, the team advanced twice after penalty shootouts that prominently featured Petr. And before sending Japan home on penalties, the Czechs enjoyed some “good luck” when a referee didn’t spot defender Tomáš Okleštěk’s handball on the goal line in the final minute of overtime. Had Okleštěk not stopped the ball with his hand, the Czechs would have conceded a goal and most likely gone home.
Luck carried the Czechs once more, in the quarterfinals against Spain, when the shot of an opposing striker, standing in front of an empty Czech net, hit the goalpost with only 12 minutes left in the game. After the victory against Spain, the Czechs would go on to beat Austria, 2–0, in the semifinals.
“We certainly had some luck, but it would be unfair to attribute all our success merely to good luck,” said head coach Miroslav Soukup. “The players improved from game to game. Their success was not accidental.”
Soukup singled out the teamwork of his players. He said that, although the junior tournament is closely watched by scouts from the world’s best clubs, his players did not attempt to show off individually but always performed as a team.
Fenin’s remarks on the defensive mistakes that allowed the Argentineans to come back in the final game seemed to reinforce Soukup’s observation.
“We never blamed each other for anything,” Fenin said. “We advanced to the final as a team and we lost it as a team, too.”

František Bouc can be reached at fbouc@praguepost.com


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