Czech coach Karel Brueckner could not believe his side conceded two late goals to lose 3-2 to Turkey and go out of the tournament at the group stage yesterday.

The Turks reached the quarter-finals thanks to Nihat Kahveci's late double, with Czech goalkeeper Petr Cech dropping the ball at his feet for the first.

"To lose such a game is incredible, even with four minutes to go we were winning 2-1 and to concede two goals in the last four minutes, is unbelievable," Brueckner told reporters.

"You cannot make mistakes like that and expect to win games. We made mistakes on the second and third goals and we did not defend well, and you can't play like that.

"We tried to play a simple game, we went 2-0 up and we were doing well, and we had chances to score more. In the end we surrendered to Turkey's pressure."

Turkey coach Fatih Terim was overjoyed given his side's injury problems.

"We've lifted a great burden off our shoulders. We had some injuries that we didn't expect. We had to manage," he said.

"We're in the quarter-finals now. Hopefully it'll get better now."

Turkey's Hamit Altintop said he thought the chance had gone.

"To be honest, we played poorly at first and after the 2-0 no one believed it was possible any more.

"We just kept playing on. But you have to say the coach made some good adjustments. He put me into midfield and we played with better organisation," he said.

"We had more coming in from the wings after that. I think that was decisive. We had more crosses. And we noticed the Czechs were losing their confidence. And we took advantage of that."