Netherlands - 2 Czech Republic - 3: As they shuffled away through the cool Portuguese night and into the darkness, some 20,000 Dutch supporters looked battered and broken in Aveiro on Saturday. The players they left behind them at Aveiro's wonderful Municipal Stadium looked no better.

Shattered and clearly still badly shaken, stars like Ruud van Nistelrroy, Edgar Davids and Jaap Stam filed through the mixed zone more than an hour after the end of an memorable encounter that all will be keen to forget.

For the neutrals in the crowd this, the 16th of 31 games here at Euro 2004, was a rare treat. The half-way point of the tournament was marked by the best game at any in perhaps six years. Compelling from start to finish, it was an encounter in which the advantage, like the tactics, shifted almost continuously over the course of 90 mesmerising minutes.

And for the Czechs, of course, it was a momentous night, one on which they showed character and courage almost beyond measure to come from two goals down and beat a Dutch side that for once didn't disappoint even if they did lose.

Much of the credit for the victory, which guaranteed Karel Bruckner's side its place in next Sunday's quarter-final, is due to Pavel Nedved, the copiously gifted attacking midfielder who tormented the Dutch over the entire course of the evening.

There were other outstanding performances too, however, with central midfielders Tomas Rosicky and Tomas Galasek, as well as strikers Milan Baros and Jan Koller, amongst those who shone most brightly in a generally dazzling team performance.

Much of the attention afterwards focused on the tactical changes made by the two coaches, two men who had previously come face to face in the qualifying tournament when Bruckner had gained the upper hand on his rival, Dick Advocaat. On Saturday it was the 64-year-old who again emerged on top, thanks to an inspired reshuffle after just 25 minutes that dramatically altered the pattern of a game that had up until then been dominated by the Dutch.

They had led 2-0 after just 19 minutes thanks to goals from Wilfred Bouma and van Nistelrooy and while the deficit had been halved moments before Bruckner's intervention from the sidelines by Koller, it was by replacing his right back and sifting to a 3-5-2 formation that the veteran coach wrong footed his team's opponents and granted Nedved the freedom he craved to dictate the course of the game from midfield.

"After their coach took off Grygera they had more control of the game," sighed van Nistelrooy when asked where things had gone wrong afterwards.

That was it," he added. "We weren't able to adapt and it cost us the game."

Not for the first time the impact of Advocaat's own changes were less beneficial with his first switch, the replacement of Arjen Robben with Paul Bosvelt just short of an hour in, depriving his team of much its most inventive attacking player so that the central midfield could be shored up.

"Everybody is talking about my substitution that didn't work out," said Advocaat in his traditional post defeat battle with the Dutch media, "but no one is talking about all the chances we missed. I substituted Robben because I wanted more of a grip on midfield, Galasek had too much space, but even without Robben we created four or five good chances."

The reality, though, is that the switch handed the Czechs, who already had little to lose by pressing forward, a licence to attack almost relentlessly. Though Clarence Seedorf was good and Edgar Davids quite superb in the Dutch midfield, the pair couldn't contain the Czech threat from deep positions while Johnny Heitinga and Philip Cocu, the two men who assumed most of the responsibility for looking after Nedved, never got to grips with what was on the night an unenviable task.

The equaliser came in the 71 minute when Koller brilliantly chested Nedved's cross into the path of Baros who finished with a fierce first-time strike. Even then the draw would have meant only that the Dutch match the result achieved by the Germans against the Czechs on Wednesday in their game with Latvia. With 20 minutes still to play in a pulsating contest, however, the point was to prove beyond them.

After Heitinga was controversially sent off for a second challenge on Nedved (a decision which also had a major bearing on the outcome), Advocaat again sacrificed an attacking player for a defensive one when he brought on Michael Reiziger for the largely disappointing Andy van der Meyde and only very late on did he attempt to redress the balance somewhat by introducing Rafael van der Vaart.

By then the initiative had long been surrendered. Both sides had hit the woodwork over the course of the game, Davids for Holland and Nedved, with a spectacular 30 yards strike for the Czechs, and each had other chances to score but it was Bruckner's side that was dominant.

In contrast to those brought in by the Dutch all of Bruckner's substitutes had impressed with Marek Heinz looking the pick of the crop.

The 26 year-old capped a fine display with the shot that led to the Czech winner, a punishing blow to a side just two minutes, plus stoppage time, away from holding out. Van der Sar saved but not well enough and following up Karel Poborsky, rather than shoot, unselfishly squared the ball for Vladimir Smicer who tapped home from a couple of yards.

"It was a fantastic game," beamed Nedved afterwards, "and we deserved to win. Just like we did against the Latvians, we slept at the start but after we awoke we showed great energy."

Enough even, judging by this performance, to go all the way.