Czechia 26 World Cup Preview

A team not really on anybody's radar a couple of months ago, Czechia make their return to the men's world cup for the first time since their Golden Generation featured in 2006. Despite roughly being around the worst ranked that they have been in the 20 years since, they beat the odds to get here. They were the team of drama in the final playoffs, with comebacks and penalty shootouts in front of their own fans to make it back to the big dance. It's a story that has lots of people embracing them, so it's time to dive into the question: can they do more at the summer stage?

Defensively, they play like your typical European underdog: sit in numbers behind the ball, drawing opponents upfield to leave space in behind for attackers to exploit. Czechia are good defending their own box in open play - to give one negative, they can be too aggressive & concede penalties.

Their attacking philosophy is jarringly 1-dimensional for a modern team: it boils down to "hoof the ball at Patrik Schick & have teammates gravitate towards him to fight for the second ball". That is effectively it. You will not catch these guys stringing together more than 5 passes.

They want direct soccer & set themselves up to maximize those chances, but if they find themselves around the other box the gameplan is still to aim at Schick:

To give credit to the coach, I think it's probably the right call for this group. They've got an excellent target player with a big drop off in technical ability beyond him, so I would set this group up to do the exact same thing. Obviously, it was good enough to qualify, keep rolling with it.

One player has become a cult hero via the playoffs, defender Ladislav Krejci - scoring two vital equalizers in March to keep the nation alive. He's chaotic in both directions - we saw the Chaotic Good recently, but there was plenty of Chaotic Bad from him the past couple of years too.

I will give Krejci this, he is box office stuff & sure to be one of the most entertaining individuals of the tournament. However, I see more patterns in his defensive flaws than in his kitchen sink heroics - be cautious with the praise is my advice:

Krejci is well representative for how this team does on set pieces too. Fantastic attacking but susceptible defending; most of those non-penalty goals they concede are on corners or served free kicks that they couldn't handle. I mean, just look at this appalling effort from #17 (Vaclav Cerny, important to note he is not on this World Cup squad):

The goalkeeping department did not inspire a lot of confidence in me as well as I watched this team. Kovar might have gotten a penalty save or two in the playoffs, but he's another one that tends to be guilty when they're conceding goals in open play.

Via competitive games, Czechia are 11-9-6 overall this cycle but 2-5-6 away from home. The playoff path fell kindly to keep them Home in both games. It's clear how magic can happen back there, but there is little evidence to trust in them on the other side of the world.

Tactically, they could not ask for a more favorable group. All 3 opponents Mexico, Korea, & South Africa will play right into their preferred game of Bunker & Boom to Schick. They won't ever need the creative attackers that they sorely lack.

I can't stop thinking about how much Group A favors them, despite the poor record outside of home. They're a perfect fit to beat South Africa & could go even with the other two: 4-5 points into a knockout round appearance feels very reasonable for this collection.