Always at the Euros, only once at the World Championships. Will the Czechs break through the qualification woes?

While the Czech Republic has qualified for the European Championships every time in its modern history and has not missed any of the championships, we have only qualified for the World Championships once. The German championship in 2006 was the first and last time the Czechs participated in this traditionally most watched and celebrated event in the football world. Will the Czechs break the 16-year wait in the barrage this year?

Qualification for the World Cup has traditionally been a failure for the Czechs. This text recalls the five unsuccessful cycles when an invitation to the final championship has always eluded us.

After the division of Czechoslovakia, we finished the already started qualification for the 1994 World Cup in the USA under the banner of the common state. Unfortunately, we missed out on qualification there as well, finishing third in the group with thirteen points behind the fifteen-point teams of Romania and Belgium.

The first independent qualification cycle awaited us only at the 1998 World Championship in France. After the great success two years ago, when we finally brought silver from the European championship in England, our participation in France was expected.

In the group, the Czechs, like our Slovak brothers, scored sixteen points, which unfortunately was not enough to beat Spain in first with twenty-six and Yugoslavia in second with twenty-three.

Between 1996 and 2006 we experienced the brightest period of our national football so far. It is therefore all the more unfortunate and unfortunate that we did not even make it to the next championship in 2002 in Japan and South Korea. And this time it was even closer.

We finished second in the qualifying group with twenty points, behind the direct qualifiers Denmark. In the two-match barrage, however, we fell short to the Belgians, who we lost to twice 0:1. We were not successful until the next four years.

Since the next qualification for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, however, our misery has continued. In the group we finished again with sixteen points in the third place, i.e. not advancing. Slovakia finished first with twenty-two points, and even Slovenia, who subsequently advanced past Russia in the barrier, overtook us with twenty points.

The 2014 World Championship also remained off-limits to the Czech team. This time, in the qualifying group, we failed to beat the first, twenty-two-point Italy, and our fifteen points were not even enough to beat the second-placed Danes, who scored one point more. However, even the Danes were not enough to qualify for the barrage in the end, as they were the worst of the second-placed teams.

So far, the last completed qualification was for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Our group was completely dominated by the Germans without losing a flower. However, the second place guaranteeing the barrage was again somewhat missed. Unfortunately, our fifteen points were not enough for the Northern Irish, who collected four points more.

This year, thanks to the new system, where the Nations League is also involved in the qualification, we made it to the barrier despite finishing third in our qualifying group. The fate was relatively mild towards us in the end, as we could have got Italy or Portugal.

However, we’ll see how we cope with the Swedes, who will be starting without the gutted Zlatan Ibrahimovic. If we managed to get past Sweden, we would be facing the winner of the Russia-Poland duel.

Source: FIFA