Czechs rout Ukraine 4-0 in friendly

Defender Michal Kadlec scored two early goals to lead the Czech Republic to a 4-0 victory over Euro 2012 co-host Ukraine in an international friendly on Tuesday.

Kadlec made it 1-0 from the penalty spot four minutes into the match after Vyacheslav Shevchuk brought down Jan Rezek in the area.

Kadlec doubled the lead eight minutes later with a header from Daniel Pudil's corner for his fifth goal in his 28th international appearance.

Rezek and Daniel Kolar struck in the first six minutes of the second half for their first international goals.

''We have to be satisfied with both the result and our performance,'' Czech Republic coach Michal Bilek said. ''We wanted our players to do their best from the start.''

Ukraine's best chance came six minutes before the final whistle with a close-range shot by substitute Anton Shinder that hit the crossbar.

The victory was a confidence boost for the Czechs ahead of their final two games against Spain and Lithuania in qualifying for the 2012 European Championship, which Ukraine is co-hosting with Poland.

The Czechs have a good chance of advancing to the playoffs from second spot in Group I. World and European champion Spain, which plays Liechtenstein later Tuesday, is expected to win the group.

For Ukraine, it was a fourth consecutive defeat after losses to Sweden, France and Uruguay.

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Lineups:

Czech Republic: Jaroslav Drobny, Zdenek Pospech (Gebre Selassie, 60), Tomas Sivok, Michal Kadlec, Daniel Pudil, Jan Rezek (Milan Petrzela, 71), Daniel Kolar (Kamil Vacek, 68), Tomas Hubschman, Jaroslav Plasil, Vaclav Pilar, Tomas Pekhart (David Lafata, 58).

Ukraine: Andriy Dykan, Oleksandr Kucher, Bohdan Butko, Sergiy Krivcov, Vyacheslav Shevchuk (Artem Fedetskiy, 76), Alexey Gai (Yaroslav Rakickiy, 46), Andriy Yarmolenko (Maksym Kalynychenko, 86), Artem Milevskiy (Yevgen Seleznov, 57), Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, Yevhen Konoplyanka (Andriy Voronin, 52), Marko Devic (Anton Shinder, 80).