Czech Republic 1 Poland 0:FAMOUS LAST-GASP defeats are a Polish tradition, whether in war or football, so there was little surprise at a loss to the Czech Republic that dumped them out of the Euro 2012 finals they have dreamed of holding for years.

It was not the defeat that hurt but the tame way Franciszek Smuda’s players went quietly into the night. After a hatful of chances in the first 15 minutes, they managed just three shots in the second half of what was billed as their biggest game in 30 years.

“Coach Smuda and his players called this the most important game of their lives. We didn’t see that on the pitch,” wrote columnist Rafal Stec in national broadsheet Gazeta Wyborcza. “If Smuda’s players had fought a desperate, emotion-packed battle with the Czechs but not been able to last to the end, we would have greeted them . . . with applause and a common bearing of the pain.”

Two decades of toil has delivered Poland prosperity have imagined under communism. But football has not rewarded them in kind.

The 1970s and 1980s golden generation that produced Grzegorz Lato and Zbigniew Boniek has given way to a succession of average squads that have struggled to win games at major finals, never mind get out of the group.

That failure has fuelled the doubters in the country’s post-1989 liberal revolution, who said something had gone awry with the national character along the way. There is a belief that Poles are too busy thinking about their own interests to unite for a common good and reaching the quarter-finals would have done much to counter that idea.

“After every defeat, I promise myself I will never fall for it again and I will not believe in the success of the national team,” leftist politician Andrzej Rozenek told TVN television after the game. “It is a cup of cold water for us all.”

Moaning at each other is a national pastime too. And captain Jakub Blaszczykowski launched the recriminations with the revelation that players were kept on tenterhooks over whether their families would get any tickets for Saturdays game.

He also said Smuda, who announced after the game that his contract would not be renewed, had gone too quickly. However, other commentators paid tribute to the coach, saying he remained the best Poland has. The captain’s ire was instead saved for Lato, a winner of the World Cup Golden Boot in 1974 and now the head of a much-criticised FA that still harks back to communist times.

“If we want to head in the direction of professionalism, if we want our football to look like it does in other countries, we have to take examples from the best,” said Blaszczykowski. “The FA president says in interviews that he has a good relationship with the team. I personally am not aware of that, because every time we establish something with him it completely is not held to. Many things are not done as they should be.”

As late as noon on matchday, Blaszczykowski said, the players were still asking whether they would get tickets before being finally given two each.

“This has no meaning at all for what happened today. But these are things that we as players, and in particular myself as captain, have the right to say and have to say,” the usually quietly-spoken midfielder told reporters. “Finally, it was the case that we got two tickets per game despite the fact that there were eight tickets for us for free each time. That was just so we should shut our traps.”

The Czech Republic reached the quarter-finals as Group A winners despite the absence of injured captain Tomas Rosicky. They took the lead in the 72nd minute when Petr Jiracek collected a pass from Milan Baros and cut inside a defender before slotting past keeper Przemyslaw Tyton for his second goal of the tournament. The Czechs advance with Greece, who upset Russia 1-0 in Warsaw, and will play the runners-up of Group B. “We did what we could do. I don’t know how to explain the fact that in one game boys played like they were fired up while in the second game they didn’t. It is the end of this great adventure,” said Poland coach Franciszek Smuda.

The co-hosts, needing a win to go through, started the game at a furious pace but missed several chances to go ahead. The Czechs were fortunate when a sloppy back pass left striker Robert Lewandowski with a chance but he skewed his effort off target under pressure from Theodor Gebre Selassie. The Czechs missed their playmaker Rosicky but eventually settled down after a nervy opening 15 minutes.

Czechs pressure finally paid off in the second half when Jiracek’s finished into the bottom corner of the net following a swift counter-attack after a pass from much-criticised forward Milan Baros who played his best game of the tournament so far. Poland frantically poured forward in search of an equaliser to keep their hopes alive but the Czechs defended in waves and held on to advance to the last eight.

At the City Stadium, Wroclaw

SUBSTITUTES

Czech Rep – Rajtoral for Jiracek (84 mins); Rezek for Pilar (88); Pekhart for Baros (90+1).

Poland – Grosicki for Polanski (56 mins); Brozek for Obraniak, Mierzejewski for Murawski (both 73).

GOALS

Czech Republic – Jiracek 72.

YELLOW CARDS

Czech Republic – Limbersky, Plasil Pekhart.

Poland – Polanski, Murawski, Wasilewski, Perquis Blaszczykowski.

ATTENDANCE 31,280

REFEREE Craig Thomson (Scotland).