Late penalty denies Scots a win

A controversial late penalty converted by Michal Kadlec denied Scotland a vital three points against the Czech Republic this afternoon.

At half time it looked as though Lady Luck was about to smile onScotland, for once, as they went into the break with a surprise one goal lead.

The first slice of luck came in the early stages when Milan Baros somehow managed to turn the ball over the bar from close range with the goal gaping in front of him.

The Czechs always looked the better side in the first half, and it was therefore a real surprise whenScotlandscored. Darren Fletcher fed the ball through to Kenny Miller’s whose shot was deflected into the net by the feet of the keeper.

At half time the suggestion was it was better to be lucky than good, and at that stage that was indeed the case.

It looked as thoughScotland’s luck would hold out as Baros missed again in the opening minutes of the second half.

But with 12 minutes to go Scotland’s luck ran out, as the Czechs equalised, sub Jan Rezek played the ball into the box and Joroslav Plasil was on hand to deflect the ball in at the front post.

UnbelievablyScotlandwere back in the lead with 8 minutes left on the clock. Czech defender Jan Rajnoch slipped and Miller was on to it in a flash and played the ball square to Fletcher to side foot the ball home.

The luck was to desertScotlandwhen with a minute to go when the visitors were awarded a controversial penalty. Rezek had skipped past sub Danny Wilson and went down under no contact, unbelievably the ref gave a penalty.

The kick was smashed high into the net by Kadlec, but the controversy wasn’t over!

At the other end Christophe Berra went down under a challenge from Roman Hubnik, where there was contact but this time the ref decided this was a dive and booked Berra for his efforts.

In the end a draw was probably a fair result over the 90 minutes, and if anything the Czechs maybe deserved to take all three points.