Artists 3 Artisans 0

It looks like Holland aren’t the only dark horses in this World Cup. Inspired by a terrific display from midfielders Pavel Nedved and Tomas Rosicky, the Czech Republic produced arguably the best football of the tournament to date as they disposed of a USA side that had method but no flair and looked almost as much like Blackburn Rovers as Australia did.

The Czechs were given a dream start by Jan Koller’s bullet header from a perfect cross from Zdenek Grygera with only five minutes on the clock. Half an hour later they went further ahead with new Arsenal man Tomas Rosicky’s flashing drive from 25 yards and in the second half the same player swept onto Nedved’s clever through ball to beat the advancing Kasey Keller with what seemed to be impudent ease and, not content with that, nearly scooped a hat trick when another brilliant shot pounded the bar.

In the end, the 3-0 margin was a fair reflection of the Czech Republic’s domination in a quality performance marred only by the loss of the giant Koller with a hamstring injury from which he is unlikely to make a swift recovery – a worrying development in view of the current injury to Milan Baros. As for the USA, on this dismal showing they are extremely unlikely to repeat their success in the last World Cup.