Roman Prochazka felt despondent after seeing a first-half penalty saved against CSKA Moscow, but credited his Viktoria Plzen team-mates for lifting his spirits as he eventually scored in a 2-1 Champions League success.
Plzen can still qualify for the Europa League and moved into third place in Group G with a 2-1 success against CSKA, who had led through Nikola Vlasic's early penalty.
Prochazka had the chance to equalise from the spot himself only to produce a tame effort that Igor Akinfeev kept out.
However, the midfielder made amends by levelling after the break, with Lukas Hejda grabbing a late winner.
"I have to admit that at half-time I did not feel well – I knew I should have scored that penalty," said Prochazka.
"I knew there was still a lot of time but I still felt terrible.
"The boys cheered me up, we went for it and we managed to turn things around. I was happy to score.
"At first I did not know the ball had gone in, I just saw my team-mates celebrating. I am glad we managed to turn the score around."
CSKA needed to win to keep alive their hopes of reaching the knockout rounds of the Champions League.
Coach Viktor Goncharenko lamented his team's inability to build on their early lead.
"Viktoria deserved it more than we did," he said.
"We really stopped playing after going in front. Our build-up play was non-existent, we didn't control the ball well enough and the first phase of our attacks was poor."
