The Swiss have the Alps, the Czech Republic have Jan Koller, and Euro 2008 had an opening game that, while it did not quite touch those sorts of heights, provided some lively moments, and a new name to note in a tournament full of well-known stars.

It did not finish with the result that the majority of those attending would have wanted but at least there will be a few relieved Austrians over the border. Switzerland cannot yet start bragging that they are the least undistinguished of the two host teams.

They can count themselves narrow losers. They threatened Petr Cech’s goal more often than their own was vulnerable, but Cech made some good saves, notably late on from Tranquillo Barnetta.

The Swiss also believed they should have had a chance to equalise Vaclav Sverkos’s goal via the penalty spot, after Tomas Ujfalusi handled the ball. They did not get it and know now that to reach the second round of their own competition will mean raising their standards against Turkey and Portugal, probably without their leading striker and skipper. Alexander Frei left the field in tears with an injury just before half-time.

As for Sverkos, he had come on as a substitute for the tall Koller with a reputation that hardly spread further than the borders of the Cezch Republic. He took his goal well, and knows his name will now be sung by fans not only of Banik Ostrava.

The Czechs have a prominent place in the highest peaks of these championships, they won while a part of Czechoslovakia in 1976, then took the silver medal home from Wembley at Euro 96 and a semi-final followed in Portugal four years ago.

There has a been a durability about their team since then, but the finest Czech footballer of the last decade, Pavel Nedved, no longer plays for his country and one of the next best, Arsenal’s Tomas Rosicky is not here either, because of injury.

As for Milan Baros, who out-scored everybody else at Euro 2004, he has not been so much in a goal-drought lately as an utter desertification of the things. He joined Portsmouth for the second half of last season and was still waiting for his first goal there at the end of the FA Cup final.

Baros did not start here alongside Koller, whom Arsenal’s Phil-lipe Senderos had been asked to mark, or rather to mountaineer. He did a tidy enough job of it in a first half in which the Czechs still seem to centre their attacking thoughts on the giant centre-for-ward but offered him some rather inaccurate service.

Had Jaroslav Plasil’s left-wing cross shortly before half-time been struck with less elevation, for instance, Koller had slipped away from Senderos to give himself time to select where to direct his header.

Marek Jankulovski, who has a trustworthy left foot, had also been guilty of overhitting his centres. On the right flank, Libor Sionko had plenty of running in him, but thanked a sizeable deflection for the effort that Diego Benaglio tipped away in the first quarter-hour. Sionko’s control would later let him down when Plasil seemed to have put him in a promising position.

The Swiss had actually carried the stronger threat in a first period that had its moments, though few of them enough to get Karel Bruckner or Jakob Kuhn, two sage-looking coaches, hopping madly around their technical areas.