Between 1903 and 1908, Bohemia (present day Czech Republic) got its start in the national football arena. Seven matches were played, six against Hungary and one against England. As part of Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic world cup team faced runner up championships in the World Cup arena in 1934 and 1962. There was a European national championship win in 1976. In 2006, the Czech Republic competed in its first World Cup tournament as an independent country. Current FIFA rankings place the Czech Republic World Cup team as the tenth ranked team in the world.
Held from June 9th to July 9th in Germany, the 2006 World Cup was the eighteenth occurrence of the FIFA world cup competition. Germany won the right to host the 2006 world cup back in 2000. The team qualification process began in 2003 with teams from each of the world’s six continents for a total of 198 teams worldwide vying for a spot on the world cup team. From this expansive group, thirty two teams, including the host nation of Germany, qualified for the final rounds of competition. The world cup team champions hailed from Italy who won the championship match over France in an exciting penalty shootout in extra time.
The 2006 World Cup tournament was one of the most watched sporting events in television history. There was an estimated 26.29 billion non-unique viewers over the course of the tournament. The dramatic championship match between Italy and France drew an estimated 715.1 million viewers. Each team competing in the World Cup competition was composed of 26 players. For the first time since the 1982 World Cup event, all six continents in the world were represented at the 2006 competition. The host city, Germany, was granted an honorary berth into the competition.
For the Czech Republic team, the 2006 World Cup Tournament began with an impressive win over the United States team. By half time, the Czech Republic was ahead of the U.S. players by a score of 2 – 0. Then a little bit of trouble hit. One of the star players, Jan Koller, suffered a ham string injury and was carted off the field by a stretcher. The team pulled together during half time break and managed to hold on to a win over the United States team.
The Czech Republic’s next match was against Ghana. This exciting match was lost by a score of 2 – 0. The team’s next match against Italy also ended in a loss by the same score. This ended the Czech Republic’s first World Cup appearance in the 16th round of the competition. Following the 2006 World Cup appearance, the Czech Football Association announced that the Czech Republic Football team will soon be calling a state of the art 50,000 seat stadium home.