It was an intense start to the World Cup final as the home crowd contributed with real atmosphere to push forward the host nation Czech Republic against Switzerland.
But despite the high tempo, goals were conspicuous by their absence – until the final period.
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Big star David Pastrnak broke both his own, and the game’s, goalless score halfway into the final period and the roof was about to lift at the arena in the capital city of Prague.
And the party would not be ruined. The Czech Republic kept the clean sheet and scored a final goal in an empty net with seconds remaining. The gold is the country’s seventh ever, but the first in 14 years.
Pastrnak: “A perfect script”
Match hero Pastrnak was in a good mood after the match.
– It’s like a perfect script. Our country has waited a long time for the gold, so I am very proud of the boys. I enjoyed every second, I’m looking forward to celebrating with the team, says Pastrnak to SVT Sport.
Then he looked into the camera and gave a message in Swedish:
– Dude, we’re going to drink all night tonight!
Tomášek: “The best I have achieved”
Färjestad’s star David Tomášek was also proud.
– There are many emotions now. It’s an incredible achievement, probably the best I’ve achieved in my career. The audience helped us so much. They were our sixth player, we won for them.
How nervous was it in the final?
– It was nervous, aimless for a long time. But we had a good flow last week and we believed in it.
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Hear a bruised Jakub Krejcik after the gold: “It doesn’t hurt” Photo: SVT