The United Arab Emirates hosts the elite of Minifootball. World Cup starts on Thursday

On Tuesday we will meet in Prague, on Wednesday we will leave for the United Arab Emirates and on Friday we will play our first game. This week the Czech national football team is already fully alive with the World Cup in Ras Al Khaimah. “I have a lot of faith in the team,” says Luděk Zelenka, the national team’s general manager.

The jousting of the world’s top thirty-two teams begins on Thursday, and the Czech national team will enter the competition on Friday at 4pm our time with a clash against Thailand. A day later they will play Algeria, who replaced Israel at the last minute, and Group C will conclude with a match against Ukraine on Monday.

“Israel gave us a lot of trouble, they played very well in the tournament in Hungary, so we missed a tough opponent. Otherwise, we don’t know much about the teams, there’s no way to keep track of them in minifootball, so we’ll go by how they look in games and prepare for them,” Zelenka described.

The manager, along with coach Stanislav Bejda and his colleagues, have been intensively forming the nomination over the past few months, and after narrowing it down, seventeen players have finally crystallised and will fly to the United Arab Emirates. Only fifteen of them can hit the field at any given time.

“I believe we have chosen well, the boys are in top form and we will all do our best to succeed at the tournament,” said Zelenka.

However, national captain Stanislav Mařík dropped out at the last minute and was replaced by Jiří Junek, captain of the Příbram Super League team.

On Tuesday, the Czech team will meet for a short camp in Prague and on Wednesday it will fly to the World Cup venue. “We have a training session, followed by a dinner together, the guys get to know each other, that’s why we meet earlier. Even during the long flight, we have personal interviews with the players,” Zelenka noted.

The top two teams from each of the eight groups will advance to the eight-finals, which will take place on Wednesday. The medal matches will culminate with the World Championships on Saturday, November 4.

The opening match between the Czech national team and Thailand will be broadcast live on CT Sport, while the duels with Algeria and Ukraine will be broadcast live on CT Sport in the evening and live on the CT Sport Plus website.

The Czech national team has participated in all three previous World Cups. It finished fifth in 2015 in the USA, as well as in 2019 in Australia. In 2017 in Tunisia, the tournament was dominated by the best teams of small football.

Czech nomination for the World Cup

Goalkeepers: Ondřej Bíro (Most), Ondřej Beran (Partyzan Příbram).

Field players: Daniel Kasal, Filip Gedeon, Daniil Doleček, Daniel Klíma, Denis Laňka (all Most), František Hakl, Daniel Žížala, Tomáš Jelínek (all Hanspaulka Praha), Ondřej Paděra, Jan Koudelka (both Blanensko), David Macháček (Predátoři Praha), Ondřej Moučka (MF Baník Ostrava), Richard Svoboda (Jihlava), Jaroslav Kubát (Pardubice), Jiří Junek (Partyzan Příbram).

The Czech national team programme in Group C

27. 10., 15.15 (SELČ): Czech Republic – Thailand, live broadcast by CT sport

28. 10., 20.15 (GMT): Czech Republic – Algeria, live broadcast on CT sport plus, replay on CT sport

30. 10., 18.00 (SAT): Czech Republic – Ukraine, live on CT sport plus, replay on CT sport