Iceland go top with win over Czechs



Kolbeinn Sigthorsson scored a sublime winner as Iceland completed a superb comeback to beat Czech Republic 2-1 and go top of Group A in their Euro 2016 qualifier in Reykjavik on Friday.
The home side dominated the game with their physical play, but Borek Dockal gave the Czech Republic the lead 10 minutes into the second half, thumping home a rising right-foot shot into the top left corner after he was teed up by Tomas Necid.
Jolted into life, Iceland equalised five minutes later when Aron Gunnarsson dived to head home, and when Sigthorsson danced around Petr Cech and slotted the winner in the 76th minute, the home crowd went wild.
The result puts Iceland within touching distance of qualifying for their first major tournament, as they now top the group on 15 points after six games, with the Czechs in second place on 13.
The Czechs started brightly, passing the ball fluidly and finding space between the Icelandic lines, while Necid wasted their best chance of the first half, heading a superb cross narrowly wide after 15 minutes.
That effort forced the home side into action and all of a sudden Iceland's high-pressure tactics and hard tackling style started to click.
The closest the home side came to scoring in the first half was via a brace of Gylfi Sigurdsson free kicks within the space of a few minutes midway through the half, with Cech saving the first and the second flying just over.
Iceland continued to bully the Czechs and Johann Gudmundsson could have scored a late third after a lung-bursting dash up the right, but even though Cech parried the ball away for a corner, the celebrations were soon under way as Iceland's remarkable run continues.
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