The 24-year-old needed only a minute to break his scoring duck, hitting the net just 60 seconds after being brought on as a substitute in the 76th minute as the game appeared to be heading for a goalless draw.

And after a scrappy own goal by Martin Jiranek drew the Welsh level in the 85th minute, the Jablonec forward popped up to score the winner a minute from time.

Wales manager John Toshack criticized the referee over both Czech goals.

"The first goal was clearly offside," he said.

"If you look at the second goal you will understand that the Czechs were in a hurry to get on with it, but you can't allow a player to take a free kick with a rolling ball. It must be stopped."

The home team dominated the first 10 minutes of the game with the Welsh pinned back in their own half. Piercing runs by new Czech captain Tomas Rosicky and fellow attacking midfielder Jiri Stayner threatened to open up the Welsh defence.

But it was Wales's Liverpool striker Craig Bellamy who came closest to opening the scoring against the run of play on the half hour.

Bellamy was one on one with Chelsea keeper Petr Cech after being picked out by a long ball, but Cech foiled his first attempt and the former Newcastle and Blackburn striker found the side-netting with the follow-up.

Towards the end of the half the Czechs seemed to be devoid of inspiration, often shooting from distance and clearly missing recently retired pair Pavel Nedved and Karel Poborsky.

The Czechs again dominated the early part of the second half but looked as though they were running out of ideas to end the stalemate as the game progressed.

Czech coach Karel Bruckner replaced Stayner with Rangers's Libor Sionko at half time but kept faith with the new look front two line-up of Monaco striker Jan Koller and Mlada Boleslav attacker Marek Kulic until the final quarter of an hour when he introduced Lafata to the fold.

Lafata - brought into the Czech squad after scoring four goals in his last five league appearances - headed in his first from close range with Welsh keeper Paul Jones stranded.

And Sionko was the provider for the second goal after acrobatically cutting back the ball for Lafata to place a shot into the corner of the net.

The win was the first for the Czechs in their last four games, which included a disappointing World Cup campaign.

Toshack's team had been hoping to pull off a surprise win that would have put them on track to qualify for their first major tournament in 50 years.