PRAGUE, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Karel Brueckner, coach of the Czech national team, has asked midfielder Rudolf Skacel to replace injured Daniel Pudil in the roster for Euro 2008, the team management announced on its website on Monday.

    Skacel, 28, playing in the German Bundesliga's Hertha Berlin,will join the Czech team before Tuesday's departure for a six-day training stay in Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria.

    "Pudil has broken the fifth metacarpal bone on his right hand,"

    spokesman Lukas Tucek said after Pudil's X-ray check-up in Prague's General Teaching Hospital.

    Pudil, playing in Slavia Praha, will definitively not start in Euro champs to be held in Austria and Switzerland.

    Skacel has been in Hertha since January. Previously he played abroad in Marseille, Heart of Midlothian and Southampton. Hestarted in the Czech first soccer league last time in the 2002/03season.