The Latvians, making their debut at a major tournament, led through a first-half goal from Maris Verpakovskis until Milan Baros levelled after 73 minutes and they did not concede the winner, scored by Marek Heinz, until five minutes from time.

"We never stopped believing in ourselves and, speaking for myself, I was convinced we could score two goals against them," said midfielder Karel Poborsky. "I always felt we could do it.

"A lot of the credit must go to the coach for making the tactical changes we needed at that time. They (Latvia) gave us a tough match, but we were the better team and we deserved to win.

"I think they are three very precious points in this group for us. Now we believe we can do something. We can begin to think about success and going through to the next round, but, of course, we still have some work to do."

Coach Karel Brueckner's changes meant the Czechs had three of their 'golden generation' of 1996 together in midfield -- Poborksy, Vladimir Smicer and Pavel Nedved -- and they began playing with greater fluency and passing on the ground instead of relying on long balls aimed at strikers Jan Koller and Baros.

"It was a good move by the coach to change things around as he did," said Baros, whose equaliser was his 17th goal in 26 international appearances. "It meant there was much more movement and variety for us."

Smicer said the Czech dressing room was a despondent place at halftime when the players trooped in, a goal down despite dominating possession but failing to create clear chances against a packed defence.

"It was good to fight back like that because now we all believe we can find a result when it is difficult, and it is going to be very difficult against the Netherlands and Germany in the next games," he said.

"But Latvia can cause both of those teams some problems too. They played well. They made it very difficult for us. We played long and looked for the knockdowns, but it did not work. We played better in the second half with the ball on the ground."

The win took the 1976 European champions and 1996 runners-up to the top of the group. They face the Netherlands next, in Aveiro on Saturday, and meet the Germans in Lisbon in their final game next Wednesday in Lisbon.