Czech Republic’s Junior Team: Nehoda, Cech and Baros serve as examples

Czechoslovakia holds a very special place in the history of the UEFA European Under-21 Championships, from the under-21 to under-23 year olds. For the youngsters from Prague and Bratislava were the first winners of the event. In the first final on June 22, 1972, they achieved a 2-2 (0-0) draw against the then Soviet Union in Moscow and won the second match at home in Ostrava 3-1 (2-0) on June 30. Prague’s top goalscorers Zdenek Nehoda (Dukla) and Dusan Herda (Slavia) played in that team. Four years later they helped win the senior European title in a penalty-shoot out against Germany.

After the separation of the Czechs and the Slovaks early in the 1990s, they still remained successful. The positive effects of the junior teams’ successes can be detected in their second title, the Czech victory in 2002. The Czechs dominated the event from 2000 until 2002 when the finals were hosted by Switzerland from May 16-28. The Czech juniors came through in preliminary-round Group B together with France, won their semi-final match against title holders Italy 3-2, and the final against France 3-1 in a penalty-shoot-out, following 90 goalless minutes in Basle on May 28.

A crowd of 20,400 spectators in St. Jakobs Stadium, Basle, got to know footballers such as goalkeeper Petr Cech and goalscorer Milan Baros for the first time that day, as they made a great contribution in the winning of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship against France. Soon afterwards they played with Premier League top teams Chelsea and Liverpool. Two years after the UEFA European Under-21 Championship 2002, professionals such as Cech and Baros, with Tomas Huebschmann, Martin Jiranek, David Rohzenal and Zdenek Grygera were with the Czech national team at the UEFA European Football Championship™ in Portugal. With five goals, Milan Baros finished top goalscorer among the 297 players present. Cech and Baros were elected to the All Star Team at that tournament. The Czech Republic lost only to the eventual European champions Greece in the semi-finals, after defeating the Netherlands and Germany.

The good work with juniors laid the basis for that success. In 2000, the Czechs had reached the final of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship in the former “homeland” of Slovakia. Then they lost 2-1 to Italy in the final in Bratislava. The “Lions” also had good UEFA U-19 teams. They finished European runners-up three times, losing 3-1 to Scotland in 1982, 1-0 to France in 1983 and 3-1 to Poland in 2001. In 1990, they won the UEFA European Youth Championship in the UEFA Under-16/Under-17 age-group.

The current UEFA Under-21 team of the Czech Republic qualified for the UEFA European Under-21 Championship 2007 finals in the Netherlands by wins in Cyprus (2-0) and Belarus (2-1) as well as a 2-1 victory at home and a 1-1 draw in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Daniel Kolar and captain Martin Latka scored in the home win, Tomas Frejlach scored the 1-1 equaliser in the 83rd minute in the away match. The team will meet England, Italy and Serbia in Group B in the finals. The National Association of the Red-White-Blues draw their resources from a relatively small, but impressive potential of 3,955 clubs, 15,378 teams and 625,552 players.

Ladislav Skorpil has been coaching the young Czech talents since 2004. The coach comes from Hradec Kralove, where he also played for a long time. He was not an outstanding star, but quickly proved his capabilities when working with junior teams. He started with the youth team of Spartak Hradec Kralove, before he took over the UFEA Under-16 and UEFA Under-18 national teams. He led Slovan Liberec to the national title in 2000 and to the Cup title in 2002 before he once again moved to the National Association. The coach is careful in his prognosis for the tournament: “We did not expect an easy group, because all teams in the UEFA European Football Championship™ finals are too good for that. We are hoping to be able to keep up with them and perhaps qualify for the semi-finals".