There are six newcomers in the nomination of Czech footballers for the beginning of the qualification for the European Championship

Illustrative photo – Czech football team coach Jaroslav Šilhavý.

Prague – The coach of the Czech national football team, Jaroslav Šilhavý, called up an unusual number of six newcomers to the opening matches of the European Championship qualifiers with Poland and Moldova in March. The first invitation to the national A-team was given to David Douděra, Martin Vitík, Lukáš Sadílek, Tomáš Čvančara and David and Matěj Juráskové.

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In the squad, despite health problems, striker Patrik Schick and defender Vladimír Coufal are not together, whose start should be decided in the next few days. Šilhavý announced this year's first nomination at a press conference in Prague. Due to Coufalo and Schick's difficulties, he called up 25 players this time, two more than usual.

The Czech team will enter the qualification on March 24 in Prague's Eden with a home match against Poland, which on paper will be the toughest opponent in the five-member Group E. Three days later, Šilhavé's charges will be presented in Moldova.

Three representative newcomers wear the jersey of the league leader Slavia and three Sparta. From Eden Šilhavý, for the first time, he called up defender Douděra with David Jurásek and midfielder Matěj Jurásek, from Letná then fullback Vitík, midfielder Sadílek and forward Čvančar. and they also have the potential to become the mainstays of the national team in the future. We nominated them also because at the moment we have injured players or players who do not have the necessary sports form,” said Šilhavý.

“They are interesting names, but they have everything in front of them, they have to keep working. Our league is one thing and the representative level or maybe the cups is another,” added the Czech coach.

Due to injury, defender David Zima is missing from the usual squad , Tomáš Kalas and Ondřej Čelůstka and the all-rounder Michal Sadílek, who will not be in the team with his brother, the newcomer Lukáš.

It will be decided in the coming days whether Schick from Leverkusen and Coufal from West Ham will be available. “There is a danger that they won't get along completely. I spoke with Patrik yesterday. He is training normally, in Leverkusen he was involved in the game for part of the game, but he wasn't at all in the last one. He has a doctor's visit today,” said Šilhavý.

“On this basis, we will decide if Patrik will not be there or if he will come to the meeting with us, we will work with him here and then we will decide before the match. He tells me that it is not completely 100%, but under certain circumstances he would like he arrived. It's the same with Vláda as it was with Paťa, we're also waiting. He's already training full-time, we believe he'll be in good shape,” Šilhavý added.

Four of the six newcomers, Čvančara, Vitík and the two Juráskés, who are not related to each other, belong to the younger category. “We know that the European Championship awaits the 21st team in June. However, for the March meeting, we agreed with coach Jan Suchopárek that these four players will go with the A team, which is waiting for the start of the qualification, while the 21st team has preparatory matches on the program,” said national team manager Tomáš Pešir.

Sparta, which got in shape at the beginning of the spring part of the season, has already six players in the nomination this time and is only two points behind the leader Slavia from the second place in the league table. Šilhavý also nominated six representatives from the Vršovice team, on the other hand, only two from champion Pilsen.

In addition to Poland and Moldova, the Czech team will also face Albania and the Faroe Islands in the qualifiers. The first two teams from each group advance to the European Championship. The remaining three places in the tournament will be contested by the 12 countries that do not succeed in the classic qualification in a play-off according to their order in the League of Nations.

“We are entering the qualifiers with the clear goal of advancing. At the start, the favorite of our group is waiting for us, which we saw mainly based on how Poland played at the World Championship,” Šilhavý reminded that the first qualifying opponent reached the round of 16 at the championship in Qatar.

Since the division of the federation on the Euro, the Czech Republic has never been absent. Last year at the continental championship, Šilhavé's men reached the quarter-finals.

The national team will meet on Monday in Prague for the first meeting of the year.

Nominations of the Czech national football team for the European Championship qualification match with Poland (March 24 in Prague) and Moldova (March 27 in Chisinau):

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