What a stunning episode of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. After having the better of Turkey for the first seventy minutes of the match, notching a two-nil lead and coming close to being up 3-0, the Czechs got burned for three goals in the final fifteen minutes, with the backbreaker coming in the eighty-seventh minute when Petr Čech, normally described as one of the best goalkeepers in the world, had a routine cross go through his fingers and onto the foot of the Turkish striker, who tapped it into the net for the tying goal. And then, to add insult, the Turks went ahead two minutes later. We didn’t venture down the street to Wenceslas Square to see if large mobs of angry Czech supporters were raising hell, since C was afraid of unruly hooligans, but I’m inclined to think most fans were too dejected to do any real damage. C’est la vie.
Yeah, well, I didn’t see you volunteering to walk about in your Istanbul souvenir T-shirt yourself.