Czechia

The first-choice goalkeeper and the single biggest reason a side built to suffer can keep believing it will be standing at the end. Koubek settled the matter aloud — Kovář first, then Horníček, then Staněk — and there is nothing provisional about it: this is his goal, his last line, and increasingly his team's psychology. At twenty-six he is in the early bloom of a goalkeeper's peak, a tall, conventional shot-stopper rather than a sweeper who wants to play out under pressure, and his distribution is the side's first attacking move, the long ball that bypasses a press and reaches Schick or Souček before the midfield scrap can form. His 2025-26 was a full season at PSV across thirty-one matches in the Eredivisie, the steady European rhythm that underwrites his standing, but it is the spring that made his name at home: five penalties saved across the two playoff legs against Ireland and Denmark, the kind of run that hardens from luck into something a nation comes to expect. In a team designed to drag knockout games into the lottery he keeps winning, that is no small thing — the homecoming after twenty years away was, in the end, kept by the man on his line, and he carries that belief into the finals as something close to a national certainty whenever a match goes the distance.

The third goalkeeper, and a man Koubek named as such without dressing it up — Staněk, the manager said plainly, knows his place and accepts it. At thirty he is the most experienced of the group by domestic standing, the established number one at Slavia Prague through a season of around nineteen league matches, a title-chasing campaign that would in many cycles have made him his country's first choice rather than its third. That it has not is a measure of Kovář's grip on the shirt and of the order Koubek wanted settled before anyone could pick at it. He is unlikely to play a minute unless misfortune strikes the two men ahead of him; for a goalkeeper of real pedigree in his prime, a World Cup spent watching is an awkward kind of honour, accepted in the spirit of a squad that has made role-clarity its creed.

The second goalkeeper in the named hierarchy, and at twenty-three the one with the future most clearly ahead of him. Horníček has spent the season as a regular at Braga in the Portuguese top flight — a full campaign of senior European football, more than thirty matches and a clutch of clean sheets, a sweeper-keeper profile and a commanding frame at nearly two metres — which is precisely why Koubek placed him above the more domestically decorated Staněk in the queue. With a single cap to his name he is here to learn the rhythm of a tournament from the bench and to be ready if Kovář falters, the heir-apparent in a goalkeeping lineage the Czechs have always taken seriously. This is the start of his international story rather than its stage; the succession, when it comes, is his to inherit.

The captain, the emotional and structural floor of the team, and the defender on whom the whole low-block conception rests. At twenty-seven and squarely in his peak, Krejčí is the left-sided centre-back who refuses to sit on the line — the front-foot defender who steps out of the back three to win an aerial or snap into a tackle before the danger arrives, left-footed balance on a side that needs it and a genuine threat at the other end when a set piece is floated in. The local verdict on the playoff against Denmark was unambiguous: he was, that night, the master of the pitch, sweeping up duels across the ground while the rest of the side held under siege, and it is no exaggeration to say the twenty-year homecoming was led through the door by him. His club season tells a more grinding story — two goals and an assist across twenty-eight Premier League matches in a hard year for Wolverhampton, the relegation-haunted kind of campaign that tests a defender's nerve weekly, with a red card among the bookings that hints at the disciplinary edge Koubek's group carries. None of that touches his standing for Czechia, where the armband sits naturally on a player asked to bear more than most: the heart of the defence, the leader of a nation back at the top table after two decades away, and the man the side cannot replace without changing what it is.

The right wing-back and the side's most-capped outfield grafter, the engine that runs up and down the right touchline to supply the crosses a dead-ball team feeds on. At thirty-three Coufal is a veteran in the truest sense, past sixty caps and into the late chapter of a long, unglamorous career: years in the Premier League with West Ham followed by a move to Hoffenheim and the Bundesliga, the kind of dependable, well-coached professional the Czech production line has always turned out and the national team has always leaned on. His job in the 3-4-2-1 is relentless rather than refined — overlap, cross, then sprint back to make the block a flat five — and the live worry is the channel behind him when he is caught high, the footrace a quick opponent like Korea or Mexico will look to start before the line resets. This is, in all likelihood, his final tournament, the last act of a player who came to international football late and made himself indispensable through sheer reliability; one of the last of the cohort that bridged the lean years into this unexpected return.

The central anchor of the back three, the quiet middle man whose job is to read the line and hold the shape while Krejčí steps out and the wing-backs climb. At twenty-six he is in the early part of his peak and very much an established starter on merit rather than seniority, a defender whose move to Hoffenheim and the Bundesliga gave him top-five-league rhythm at the right age and whose around thirteen caps reflect how recently he became a fixture. His is the unshowy work the system depends on: command the centre of a packed block, organise the cover behind a stepping captain, and resist being dragged out of position when the side is stretched. For a defender who began the cycle on the fringe of the conversation, a first World Cup as the central pillar of the defence is a real arrival — part of the spine Koubek will want to build the next cycle around as Coufal and the older heads move on.

Tipped to start on the right of the back three, the experience-led answer to one of the squad's genuinely live selection calls. Štěpán Chaloupek wore the role against Guatemala, but Holeš is the projection for the opener precisely because of what a thirty-three-year-old of forty-odd caps brings to it: tournament nous, the steadier cover behind Coufal's overlaps, and a versatility — he has spent much of his career in midfield as much as defence — that lets him shield the channel where a quicker side will probe. A Slavia man through a long, decorated domestic career, he is a veteran called upon not for athletic upside but for reading and calm, the kind of pick that tells you exactly what Koubek values. This is surely his last tournament, a late reward for a dependable servant; whether he keeps the shirt past the first whistle is the clearest battle in the back line.

The projected left wing-back, the natural left-footed width that balances Coufal's industry on the other flank. At twenty-five Jurásek is in the emerging-into-peak bracket, a player whose career took an ambitious turn — a move to Benfica that never quite settled into regular minutes — before he found his level again back home at Slavia, where a season of steady senior football has restored his stock. His job is the mirror of Coufal's: push high to stretch the pitch and deliver from the left, then drop smartly into the back five when possession is lost. The same structural caveat applies, the space behind him when he is caught upfield, but his left foot gives the attack a delivery angle it would otherwise lack. A first World Cup at a good age, this is the stage on which a career that briefly stalled can be relaunched on his own terms.

A centre-back in reserve, and a useful one — at twenty-five a player with around two dozen caps already, more experienced at international level than his squad billing suggests. Zima came on against Guatemala as Koubek shuffled his back line, and he offers right-footed cover across the three central berths, a Slavia defender from the same title-chasing core that supplies so much of this squad. He projects as depth rather than a likely starter, behind Hranáč in the centre and Holeš and Chaloupek on the right, but the kind of seasoned cover a tournament squad is glad to carry. In his prime years and well-grooved in his club's system, he is one knock away from real minutes.

The young centre-back who started the Guatemala friendly on the right of the back three, which keeps him very much in the conversation even as Holeš is tipped to take the role into the opener. At twenty-three Chaloupek is among the genuinely emerging defenders in the group, a Slavia man with only a handful of caps whose inclusion and starting minutes in the final warm-up mark a swift rise. His case is the modern one — legs, recovery pace, the ability to run the footraces an ageing Holeš would rather avoid in the exposed channel — against the veteran's reading of the game. Whichever way Koubek leans, this is a breakout stage for a defender ahead of schedule, and a piece of the future the staff are blooding beneath the older heads.

Squad depth on the left side of the defence, a thirty-three-year-old veteran whose presence is about balance and experience rather than a likely starting place. A left-footed Sparta Prague defender comfortable at left-back or in a back-three berth, Zelený has built a steady tally of caps across previous cycles without ever quite nailing down the shirt, the dependable spare part a tournament squad needs behind a first-choice it hopes not to lose. With Jurásek ahead of him on the left and Krejčí the left-sided centre-back, his route to the pitch is narrow. This is in all likelihood his only World Cup, a late and deserved nod to a long professional career, more probably spent on the bench than the grass.

A right-sided defender and wide option who arrived at the squad through controversy and answered it on the pitch. Douděra was one of two Slavia players Koubek selected despite a club suspension handed down after derby discipline, a choice that drew loud domestic criticism — and which the manager justified by pointing to the loyalty and grit the player had shown through the playoffs; the FotMob record of the season also carries a red card among his bookings, part of the disciplinary edge that ran through the affair. At twenty-eight and in his peak, he is a versatile right-flank presence enjoying a creative club season — around four league assists and a chances-created return near the top of his position — which makes him a genuine alternative to Coufal's industry and a man who can come on and change a game, as he did against Guatemala with an assist off the bench. Squad depth on paper, but the useful kind, and a small vindication of his manager's stubbornness.

The tactical identity of this team made flesh, the box-to-box midfielder around whose head so much of the plan is drawn. At thirty-one Souček is in the seasoned heart of his career, past eighty-nine caps and the most reliable source of goals in a side short of them — seventeen for his country from a deep-lying role, a remarkable return that says everything about his late runs and his presence at every set piece. When the ball goes up it tends to find him; when a corner is swung in he is the man the defence loses; and in front of the back three he screens the counter while Krejčí steps out, the two-way engine a survival side cannot do without. His club season at West Ham was the grind of a struggling team — five goals across thirty-five Premier League matches, the goalscoring touch from midfield intact even amid the wider misery, with a red card among the cards that, again, hints at the edge this group carries. Hardened by years of exactly the gritty, low-possession football Czechia now want to play, he is the bridge from the lean post-2006 decade into this return, and the player whose arrivals into the box are the side's surest route to a goal.

The deep-lying conductor of the double pivot, the man who sets the low tempo behind Souček's running and takes the set pieces the whole attack is built to manufacture — and, fittingly, the one who buried the decisive penalty against Denmark to send Czechia through. At twenty-seven and in his peak, Sadílek is a left-footed metronome rather than a destroyer, a small, clean passer whose chances-created numbers in a strong Slavia season around twenty-nine league matches were among the best at his position, the rare touch of craft in a side that otherwise lives on graft and dead balls. His job is to keep the side's shape, slow the game when it needs slowing, and put the ball on Souček's head or Schick's chest from a dead ball. After years abroad in the Netherlands he has found his standing at home, and this World Cup is the stage that confirms it — a player who has quietly become essential to how the team functions, his nerve from twelve yards already written into the country's recent history.

The projected left-sided attacking midfielder, the ball-carrier who tucks into the half-space behind Schick and crashes the box when a cross comes in. At twenty-nine and in his prime, Provod is a powerful, left-footed runner — tall for the role and direct with it — whose job is to live off the second balls Souček knocks down and to give the attack a forward thrust it otherwise struggles to find. A Slavia man with around thirty-seven caps, he has been a fixture of the national side through the lean years and into this return, the kind of honest, two-way attacker Koubek trusts in a low-possession plan. His starting place is real but not unchallenged: a fully fit Adam Hložek is the higher-ceiling alternative on that flank, which makes Provod's tournament partly a matter of holding off a more gifted but less reliable rival. For a player who has given the side years of dependable work, a first World Cup is a long-deserved reward.

The veteran recall, brought back from international retirement at thirty-five for the midfield ballast a tournament demands — a deliberate piece of insurance behind Souček and Sadílek rather than a bid for a starting place. Darida is the most-travelled head in the group, near eighty caps and a long career in the Bundesliga with Hertha Berlin before his return home to Hradec Králové, the experience of more than a decade at the top of the international game folded back into a squad that prizes exactly that. He played forty-five minutes against Guatemala, the staff reintegrating him with care, and his value is the calm of a player who has seen everything a major fixture can throw up. This is, beyond any doubt, his last dance — a final tournament for a player who thought his international days were behind him, recalled because Koubek wanted his composure in the room as much as on the pitch.

A central-midfield option from the domestic game, the dossier's named alternative to anchor the pivot if Koubek wants fresher legs beside Souček. At twenty-five Červ is in the emerging-into-peak bracket, a tidy two-way midfielder enjoying a settled run at Viktoria Plzeň, with around sixteen caps and a couple of international goals that mark him as more than a passenger. He sits behind Sadílek and the recalled Darida in the pecking order, but offers a younger, more energetic profile in the engine room — useful cover in a position the staff value for its discipline. A first World Cup is both reward for his domestic consistency and an audition for a larger role in the cycle ahead.

The sudden jolt of youth in a deliberately gnarled squad, an eighteen-year-old Sparta Prague midfielder fast-tracked into the twenty-six on the strength of a brief, bright breakthrough — around eight league matches and a couple of assists — and a single senior cap won on his debut against Kosovo on 31 May. His inclusion is the most romantic line in Koubek's selection: should he feature, he would be in range of becoming the youngest Czech ever to play at a World Cup, an extraordinary leap for a player who began the season barely on the senior radar. Nobody pretends he is here to start; he is the future given a seat at the table now, blooded early so the experience travels with him for a decade. Realistically he will watch and learn, but his mere presence tells you Koubek's pragmatism has a soft spot for what comes next.

The right-sided attacking midfielder and the side's one true source of open-play invention, the rare spark of creation in a team otherwise defined by organisation and dead balls. At twenty-five Šulc is in the early peak of a career on a sharp upward curve: a move from Plzeň to Lyon and Ligue 1 that paid off at once, a productive first season abroad with eleven goals and three assists across around twenty-seven league appearances, attacking output that stands out among his international peers and confirms the leap from the Czech league to a top-five division. For Czechia he is the man who tucks into the right half-space, links the midfield to Schick and is asked, more than anyone, to conjure something from nothing on the rare afternoon the side has the ball. The burden is real and a little unfair: with Hložek's fitness uncertain, much of the open-play threat runs through him alone, and the live question is whether a low-possession plan gives him enough of the ball to shape games the way his quality can. This World Cup is his shop window on the grandest stage — the chance to announce that the Lyon season was no fluke — and he is the present and near future of Czech creativity, the man the next cycle's attack will likely be drawn around.

A central midfielder on the fringe of the squad, here for depth and for the experience rather than for the pitch. At twenty-three Sojka is one of the younger profiles Koubek has folded in, a tall Plzeň midfielder with a single cap to his name and a career still finding its level in the Czech top flight. He sits well down the midfield queue behind Souček, Sadílek, Darida and Červ, and barring a cluster of misfortune ahead of him he will spend this tournament watching. There is little verified beyond his role and standing, and it would be inventing colour to claim more; what is clear is that this is an early taste of the senior international stage for a player whose story lies ahead of him.

A young attacking midfielder who pressed his case at exactly the right moment, scoring off the bench in the 3-1 win over Guatemala in the final warm-up. At twenty-three Višinský is firmly in the emerging bracket, a Plzeň forward-cum-attacking-midfielder with a single senior cap whose late goal on US soil was a useful reminder of what he offers from the bench — directness and a finish when a tiring defence opens up. He projects as squad depth among a crowded attacking group rather than a starter, but the kind with a clear, repeatable use case late in matches. For a player this new to the senior side, a first World Cup is seasoning to carry into the cycles to come.

The lone centre-forward and the swing factor in the entire attack, the player toward whom everything in the final third bends. At thirty Schick is in the heart of his peak and the most complete footballer in the squad — a tall striker who holds the ball up to bring the half-spaces into play and, above all, finishes inside the box with a coldness few at this tournament can match. The numbers carry their own argument: sixteen goals and three assists across twenty-eight Bundesliga matches for Bayer Leverkusen in 2025-26, twenty-five goals in fifty-two caps for his country, and an early strike against Guatemala to arrive in form. Near the sharpness that lit up Euro 2021 — where his halfway-line goal against Scotland became one of the tournament's images — he can win a low-event game on his own; rusty or starved of service, the side has almost no other way through, and the attack collapses back into hopeful balls toward a target man. That dependence is the team's defining vulnerability and its likeliest source of joy in equal measure. He is the quality at the top of the pitch that lifts a survival side into something dangerous, the bridge between Czech football's reputation for clever forwards and its present reality of grit — and on his finishing, more than anything, the whole campaign turns.

The bench's blunt instrument and one of the more divisive names in the squad, the 199-centimetre target forward sent on when the plan turns frankly to route one. Chorý was the other Slavia player Koubek selected despite a club suspension following derby discipline — the FotMob record shows three red cards across his league season, the disciplinary volatility that fuelled the domestic outcry — and the manager's faith was repaid almost on cue, the striker scoring within minutes of coming on against Guatemala. At thirty-one and in his prime he is having the best goalscoring season of his life, seventeen goals in around twenty-four matches for a title-chasing Slavia, numbers that make the moral debate around his inclusion harder to wave away. His job for the national side is narrow but potent: a closing-stages battering ram to aim crosses and long throws at when Schick needs relief and the game has become a fight. A first World Cup at this age is a late and unlikely reward; he is the embodiment of his manager's unsentimental method, picked for what he does rather than for how it looks.

The higher-ceiling alternative on the left of the attack, kept in the squad on an injury exception and very much a fitness watch rather than a settled option. At twenty-three Hložek is the most gifted of the squad's younger forwards — once the brightest teenage talent in the country, with more than forty caps already from an early start in international football — but his season was wrecked by a long layoff, only fragments of club minutes at Hoffenheim late in the campaign, barely half an hour of Bundesliga football across a handful of substitute appearances. That is why the staff want to see a fully sharp version before they lean on him: the talent could lift Provod's flank to another level, but the rust is real and the body unproven. This World Cup is, in a sense, a redemption it is not yet clear he can take — a chance to remind everyone of the player he was meant to become, if his fitness holds long enough to let him. The promise has always been there; the question, as so often with him, is the durability beneath it.

A hard-running centre-forward held in the squad as an alternative to Schick and Chorý, currently a minor fitness watch after a knock to the ankle against Kosovo on 31 May saw him substituted in the twenty-second minute — X-rays showed no bone damage, Koubek called it a preventive change, and he is expected to be fully fit. At twenty-nine and in his prime, Kuchta is a combative, pressing Sparta Prague forward with around thirty caps, the kind of energetic, abrasive presence who can lead the line differently from either man ahead of him, harrying defenders rather than holding the ball up. He projects as depth at a crowded position rather than a starter, but a useful change of profile off the bench. In all likelihood his only World Cup, this is a stage that rewards a long, honest career in the Czech game.

A centre-forward in reserve, the fourth of the striking options behind Schick, Chorý and Kuchta. At twenty-seven and in his peak years, Chytil is a tall, hard-working Slavia Prague forward with around twenty-two caps and a half-dozen international goals, a player who broke into the national side on the back of consistent domestic scoring and a memorable hat-trick in European competition. He offers Koubek another aerial presence and a willing runner, but sits well down a deep forward queue and projects to spend the tournament largely watching. This is most probably his only World Cup and a peripheral role within it; he is here for balance and for the option his profile provides, rather than for a settled place in the plan.