Czechia

The Czech Republic is the smartest pick to “punch above its FIFA ranking” of any team in this tournament. Drawn into Group A at 42nd in the world, they are nonetheless the second favourite to win the group at +210 — Mexico’s only real challenger. The reasons are structural. First, the personnel: Patrik Schick is one of the most clinical penalty-area finishers in Europe (25 goals in 52 caps, 2020 Euros joint top scorer, fully healthy after two years of muscle injuries), Tomáš Souček is a Premier League midfielder who specialises in late box arrivals, Matěj Kovář is a competent No.1 with PSV pedigree, and Ladislav Krejčí has emerged as the side’s best ball-carrying centre-back during his Wolves debut season. Second, the physical mismatch: Souček, Schick, Krejčí and Holeš are all 1.90m or taller, and Group A opponents Mexico, South Korea and South Africa are all average-sized at best. Set-pieces will be Czechia’s primary attacking weapon.

The schedule is favourable but compressed. Opener against South Korea in Guadalajara on 11 June at altitude — Czechia has not played a competitive match at significant altitude in over a decade, and Hong Myung-bo’s Korean side has been camped in Salt Lake City for weeks to acclimatise. A Czech win here would essentially seal a Round of 16 spot before the 18 June fixture against South Africa in Atlanta (where humidity will be the main concern). The closer against Mexico at the Azteca on 24 June will be the toughest match, but if Czechia have already secured advancement, Koubek will rotate. The realistic plan is to take maximum points from the South Korea and South Africa fixtures and live with whatever happens against the hosts.

Ceiling: Round of 16, with a faint chance of Round of 32 if they win the group through a Mexico stumble. Floor: a winless campaign in which the altitude and the venue heat conspire to take Czechia out before the knockouts. Most-likely: a second-place finish behind Mexico, and a Round of 16 match against a UEFA Group D/E/F runner-up — a fixture Czechia will be a slight underdog in, but not a hopeless one. For Miroslav Koubek personally, this entire tournament is a late-career bonus. He took the job in December 2025 because the federation had no one else; he is unlikely to coach beyond the 2026 calendar regardless of outcome, and at 74 with a possible Round of 16 World Cup berth on his CV, he will retire as a quiet Czech footballing folk hero either way.

The Czech Republic returns to the World Cup for the first time since Germany 2006 — a 20-year absence that has felt longer to a generation of fans who grew up only on Euros. The route here was anything but tidy: the Czechs finished second in UEFA Group L behind Croatia, then watched manager Ivan Hašek lose the dressing room and ultimately the job after a winless October 2025 window. The federation turned to veteran Miroslav Koubek, the 74-year-old Plzeň lifer, in December 2025 on a two-and-a-half-year deal — the oldest first-time international head coach in modern UEFA memory. Whatever he did worked: a fortunate 2-2 first-leg draw with Republic of Ireland in Prague (4-3 on penalties) on 26 March was followed by an immortal 2-2, 3-1-on-penalties triumph over Denmark in the playoff final on 31 March, Pavel Šulc and Ladislav Krejčí scoring before Rasmus Højlund, Anders Dreyer and Mathias Jensen all missed from the spot.

Tactically, Koubek is pragmatic and old-school in the best Czech sense. The formation tends to be a back three when defending (3-4-2-1 with Coufal and Jurásek as wing-backs) and morphs into a 4-2-3-1 in possession, with Tomáš Souček charging late into the box and Patrik Schick stretching the line. Schick — the 2020 Euros joint top scorer with that immortal halfway-line goal against Scotland — remains the country’s most clinical finisher with 25 international goals; he ended the most recent Bundesliga season healthy at Leverkusen, which is more than anyone expected after two injury-plagued years. Adam Hložek’s return to fitness for this World Cup is one of the stories of the squad and gives Koubek another genuine front-line option alongside Šulc, who has emerged from Plzeň as the surprise breakout creator. The single biggest tactical weapon is aerial dominance: Souček, Schick, Krejčí and Holeš are all 1.90m+ and the Czechs scored seven set-piece goals in qualifying.

Recent form is meaningfully better than the squad’s underlying talent would suggest because Koubek has tightened the defensive structure. The preliminary 29-man squad announced on 21 May (down from 54 on 12 May) leans heavily on Bundesliga and Premier League experience — Schick at Leverkusen, Souček and his pal Coufal previously at West Ham, Kovář the new No.1 at PSV after his Manchester United loan years, Krejčí thriving at Wolves. The teenage call-up Hugo Sochůrek (from Slavia Prague’s reserves) was the surprise of the squad and reflects Koubek’s willingness to pick on form rather than reputation. A final tune-up against Kosovo on 31 May closes preparations.

History-wise, the Czechs (and Czechoslovakia before them) carry serious World Cup pedigree: two final appearances (1934 and 1962, both as Czechoslovakia), quarters in 1990 as Czechoslovakia, Euro 1996 final as the Czech Republic. But the modern era has been a desert — group exits in 2006, no qualification for 2010, 2014, 2018 or 2022. The opening match against South Korea in Guadalajara on 11 June will be critical; the Czechs are slight favourites in betting markets at +210 to win the group (behind Mexico) and their realistic ceiling here is a Round of 16 spot if they finish second behind Mexico. The floor is a third-place exit, but the smart money calls them the most dangerous “fourth seed” in the entire tournament.

Miroslav Koubek is the most unlikely manager at this World Cup. Born 1 September 1951 in what was then Czechoslovakia, he was a journeyman goalkeeper in the Czech lower leagues whose coaching career began in 1983 and unfolded almost entirely within Czech domestic football — Bohemians 1905, Slovácko, Mladá Boleslav, Slavia Prague (briefly, in 2011-12), and three separate spells at Viktoria Plzeň over twenty years. He won the Czech First League with Plzeň in 2014-15 and the Czech Supercup the same year, and in his third Plzeň spell (2023-25, signed at 71 as the league’s oldest coach) he engineered consecutive deep European runs: a Conference League quarter-final in 2023-24, and a Europa League round-of-16 berth in 2024-25, an extraordinary outcome for a small-budget Czech club. That late-career Plzeň reinvention was what put him on the federation’s emergency shortlist in December 2025.

The appointment itself was a panic move. Ivan Hašek — the manifest’s listed manager — had run the squad into the ground across an underwhelming autumn 2025 window, with the federation reportedly losing the locker room before pulling the trigger and dismissing him after Czechia limped through their final qualifying matches in second place. Assistant Jaroslav Kostl oversaw a meaningless 6-0 win over Gibraltar in November 2025, and Koubek was confirmed on 19 December 2025 on a two-and-a-half-year deal, the oldest first-time senior international coach in modern UEFA memory. The remit was simple: get to the World Cup via the March 2026 playoffs. He did. The 2-2 first-leg draw with Republic of Ireland in Prague went to penalties (4-3); the 2-2 final against Denmark four days later also went to penalties (3-1), with Højlund, Dreyer and Jensen all missing for the Danes.

His tactical philosophy is genuinely old-school. Koubek’s preferred shape is a 4-2-3-1 in possession that defends as a back-five via the wing-backs (often 3-4-2-1 against superior opposition), with two big bodies in midfield (Souček and either Provod, Bucha or Sadilek), Schick high, and the goal-creation funneled through set-pieces and direct vertical balls. His Plzeň teams led the Czech First League in set-piece goals scored two years running, and the same pattern has continued at international level — seven of the Czech Republic’s 22 qualifying goals came from set-pieces. He has been openly humble about the limits of this Czech generation, saying in his first national-team press conference that “we are not Croatia, we are not Belgium, and we will not pretend to be.”

Koubek’s relationship with the squad is paternal and somewhat distant — he is sixty years older than Hugo Sochůrek, the teenage Slavia reserve he plucked into the preliminary squad — but the senior players speak highly of his clarity. Souček, Coufal and Schick have all credited him with restoring a defensive structure that had fallen apart in the final months of Hašek’s tenure. What’s at stake for Koubek personally is not legacy in the conventional sense — at 74, his coaching career is essentially complete regardless — but a strange, late-life chance to author a tournament chapter for a country that has not been at a World Cup since 2006. If Czechia get out of the group and reach the round of 16, he will retire as a national hero. If they crash out winless, he will retire anyway, but quietly, and the federation will move on to a younger, more European-style appointment.