The Czech Republic had been held 1-1 by South Africa on the World Cup on Thursday which retains the possibilities of each groups intact to achieve the knock out phases. Michal Sadilek opened the scoring for the Czechs within the sixth minute,arrange by Aleksandr Sojka after a protracted throw in from Vladimir Coufal had induced havoc within the South Africa defence. The equalizer within the 83rd minute got here out of the blue, with Teboho Mokoena sending goalkeeper Matej Kovar the flawed means from the penalty spot after a Pavel Sulc handball. Innocent South Africa had been unable to interrupt down the Czech defence and didn’t register a primary effort on the right track till the 74th minute. The Czechs paid the worth for changing into passive quickly after their objective. Patrik Schick had wasted an opportunity earlier than their objective and so they solely briefly threatened once more within the first minutes of the second half when Lukas Cerv was denied by Ronwen Williams and Schick headed into the arms of the keeper on the following nook kick. Each groups have one level after having misplaced their first video games, the Czechs 2-1 in opposition to South Korea and South Africa 2-0 in opposition to co-hosts Mexico. Mexico play South Korea in a while Thursday. The ultimate group matches subsequent week are Czech Republic v Mexico and South Africa v South Korea. The highest two from every of the 12 teams attain the spherical of 32 together with the eight greatest third place finishers. South Africa have by no means gone past the group stage, the Czechs for the final time in 1990 after they reached the quarterfinals. Thursday’s match was officiated by American Tori Penso, the second lady in control of a males’s World Cup recreation, 4 years after Stephanie Frappart of France was the referee for Germany v Costa Rica. — dpa
