Czechs set sights on Olympic goal

After seeing their dream of reaching the final dashed, the Czech Republic quickly switched their focus to a third-place play-off and their last remaining opportunity to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics.

Admir Mehmedi's goal six minutes from the end of extra time sent Switzerland into Saturday's final against Spain – and left the Czechs to face Belarus earlier in the day for third place in the tournament and a ticket to next year's Olympics.

"Our aim hasn't changed: we'd still like to go to the Olympics," full-back Ondřej Čelůstka told UEFA.com. "We'll do everything to do that on Saturday. It doesn't matter that we'll be playing just for third position." Forward Tomáš Pekhart added: "We have to try and get some rest now, gather our last reserves of energy and strength, and put them into that game and qualify for the Olympics. It's our last match so we have to give everything to qualify."

Coach Jakub Dovalil had said he hoped his team would play more convincingly in the semi-final than they had in coming through a testing Group B courtesy of a dramatic third-game victory over England. However, it was Switzerland who looked by far the more dangerous of the sides at the Herning Stadion, with starlets Xherdan Shaqiri and Innocent Emeghara constantly worrying an under-par Czech outfit.

Midfielder Lukáš Mareček told UEFA.com: "At half-time the boss raised his voice. We managed to do a bit better in the second half. By extra time our aim was to get to a penalty shoot-out. We are disappointed that we failed to achieve our goal. We conceded when we left their player free in the centre of the pitch – that should never happen. That did for us."

A disconsolate Pekhart said: "I don't know what happened. We didn't even run, we were walking on the pitch and hardly had a shot on goal. You can't win playing like this.

"We had come through such a difficult group and were on a high," continued the front man, who had netted in added time to give his country the 2-1 win against England they thought could kick-start their campaign. "We wanted to get a result but it was a bad game for us, we didn't play well. Switzerland deserved to go through to the final."