- Harry Manning
- Tue, Jun 14 2016
A late Gerard Pique goal handed defending champions Spain an opening Euro 2016 win over a valiant Czech Republic side at Toulouse on Monday afternoon.
It seemed that the Czechs were going to hold out for a point with an inspiring defensive display keeping out wave upon wave of Spanish attacks throughout the game, not to mention Petr Cech making a number of world-class saves to deny the hungry Spaniards.
Alas, Pique’s late headed effort proved enough to give Spain all three points and leave the Czechs, somewhat undeservedly, empty-handed.
Spain controlled the play from the opening whistle, yet they couldn’t carve out a clear-cut opportunity until the 15th minute, David Silva skimmed a ball across the box where Alvaro Morata was on hand to strike, but Cech made a superb close-range stop to deny the Juventus forward.
Ten minutes later, Andres Iniesta slipped a neat ball through to Morata who aimed his shot towards the bottom left corner, but Cech was alert again and got the slightest of touches to tip it around
the post.
With five minutes remaining in the first-half, Cech pulled off another wonder-save. Iniesta threaded a ball through to the onrushing Jordi Alba whose first-time thunderbolt was parried away to safety.
On the stroke of half-time, Tomas Necid recorded the Czech’s first shot of the game. The Bursaspor striker received the ball high up the pitch before turning and hitting a low drive on target which failed to really test David De Gea.
Spain immediately picked up where they had left off from the opening second-half whistle and would have been in front from their first attack if not for the heroics of Roman Hubnik.
Iniesta found space down the left before bending a beautifully lofted ball into the path of Morata whose pull-back was forced onto the post and out by Hubnik.
From the resulting corner, the ball fell to Nolito who powered it towards goal, but Hubnik was on hand to block the initial strike with his legs before throwing his body in front of the ball again when Sergio Ramos pounced on the rebound.
This would spark a mini-revival in the Czech attack as they had two glorious opportunities to take a shock lead.
First, Ladislav Krejci swung the ball onto the foot of Hubnik, but De Gea was level with it and made a brilliant save to flick it wide of the goal.
Ten minutes later Theodor Gebre Selassie got on the end of a Tomas Rosicky free-kick. It flew over De Gea only for Cesc Fabregas to be perfectly positioned at the back post to clear it off the line.
Spain continued to pummel balls into the Czech box with Hubnik and his defensive counterparts having an answer for everything thrown at them.
Silva came close with a quarter-of-an-hour to play when he found space just inside the D – his shot brushed past the post on its way out of play.
Artiz Adruiz was introduced midway through the second-half to make his first appearance at a major international tournament at the age of 35. The Athletic Bilbao striker came close to breaking the deadlock when he rose high in the air to meet a Juanfran cross and hit a brilliant overhead kick which went just wide of Cech’s post.
Then, in the 87th minute, the breakthrough which broke Czech hearts arrived. Iniesta curled another delightful ball into the area, which this time evaded the heads of the Czech defence to meet an onrushing Pique who made no mistake with a close-range header at the back stick. The relief of the La Roja faithful was palpable.
There was still time for a possible late twist in the game when Vladimir Darida finally had an impact on the game. The highly-rated Hertha Berlin midfielder blasted an incredible shot from distance which forced De Gea to throw himself in front of the ball to push it away.
That brought an end to proceedings as Spain sealed the three points to join Croatia at the top of Group D. The Czechs, to their credit, deserved to take something from this game on the back of their phenomenal efforts in keeping out the Spanish for such a long period. However, it was not to be and they will now refocus and regroup for their next fixture against Croatia on Friday evening
Spain: David De Gea, Juanfran, Gerard Pique, Sergio Ramos, Jordi Alba, Cesc Fabregas (Thiago Alcantara, 70), Sergio Busquets, Andres Iniesta, David Silva, Alvaro Morata (Aritz Adriz, 63), Nolito (Pedro, 82)
Subs not used: Iker Casillas, Cesar Azpilicueta, Marc Berta, Hector Bellerin, Koke, Sergio Rico, Mikel San Jose, Bruno Soriano, Lucas Vazquez
Czech Republic: Petr Cech, Pavel Kaderabek, Tomas Sivok, Roman Hubnik, David Limbersky, Vladimir Darida, Jaroslav Plasil, Theodor Gebre Selassie (Josef Sural, 86), Tomas Rosicky (David Pavelka, 88), Ladislav Krejci, Tomas Necid (David Lafata, 75).
Subs not used: Borek Dockal, Michael Kadlec, Daniel Kolar, Tomas Koubek, Daniel Pudil. Jiri Skalak, Milan Skoda, Tomas Vaclik.
Bookings: D. Limbersky (61).
Referee: Szymon Marciniak (POL).
Attendance: 29,400.
Extratime Man of the Match: Roman Hubnik (Czech Republic).
