IF IT is no longer a novelty to boast membership of the European Union, at least the Czech Republic never tires of the continent’s biggest football tournament. The country, which split with Slovakia from the former Czechoslovakia in 1993, was accused of apathy after a poor turnout at the recent EU parliamentary elections, but around 9,000 obsessive fans are in Portugal this month to strengthen their team’s enduring love affair with the European Championship.
Ever since Half Man Half Biscuit asked Santa Claus for a Dukla Prague away kit, there has been a fascination with the Czechs’ faded charms. In the village of Sintra last week, at a training ground decrepit enough to be a product of communism, around
200 of their supporters whooped and hollered as Pavel Nedved led his team on a gentle jog around the pitch. They had been due to train in Lisbon’s Jose Alvalade Stadium, but there was a match on TV and, well, they couldn’t be bothered.
Their supporters, revelling in the team’s flawless negotiation of Group D, are as noisy and passionate as any at Euro 2004. In the defeat of Germany on Wednesday, they drowned out their counterparts in black and white, before celebrating a meaningless victory as though it were a title. One banner revealed that the Czech menu was Latvia for breakfast, Holland for lunch and Germany for dinner. In today’s quarter-final on at the Dragao Stadium in Porto, the plan is to have Denmark for supper.
It is an appetising prospect, however small the respective nations. The Liverpool midfielder, Vladimir Smicer, who scored twice in a 2-0 defeat of Denmark at Euro 2000, recalls only too well that the Scandinavians denied his team a place at the World Cup in Japan. "We have a lot of respect for them because they are playing really well here," he said. "They nearly beat Italy, they nearly beat Sweden and they beat Bulgaria comfortably. Really, it will be tough."
By winning all three of their group matches, the Czechs already have lived up to their tradition of success in the European Championship. They have qualified for every finals since the break-up of Czechoslovakia over a decade ago, and in 1996 secured the silver medal after losing to Germany in the final. In 1960 and 1980, they claimed third place. Their finest hour was in 1976, when Antonin Panenka’s penalty in a fabled shoot-out against West Germany won them the trophy in Yugoslavia.
The record would be impressive enough were it not also in sharp contrast to their recent struggles at the World Cup. The last time they were represented on the game’s biggest stage was in 1990. Their celebrated elder statesmen, Karel Poborsky and Pavel Nedved, have never been that far. Poborsky, the former Manchester United winger, made his name with that famous lobbed goal against Portugal at Euro 96. Nedved, the flaxen-haired Juventus midfielder, is Europe’s Footballer of the Year.
Smicer, too, has had to go without the World Cup, despite making his debut for the Czech Republic in 1993. "I can’t explain it," he says. "It is always the same team, but in qualification for the World Cup we just don’t play well. In our last two qualification groups for European Championships, we have won 17 and drawn only one, but in the World Cup it is all bad. It is like a rollercoaster, up and down, up and down. It’s unbelievable."
Maybe their form in this tournament is self-perpetuating. Smicer’s father-in-law was in the side who came third in Italy 24 years ago, and the talismanic Panenka remains in and around the Czech camp as a TV pundit. Just as Smicer was driven by those he grew up with, so has he had an uplifting effect on emerging players. The 31-year-old midfielder, remembered for his long-range equaliser against Russia eight years ago, is one of only three current squad members who survive from Euro 96. The others are Poborksy and Nedved.
The theory that their squad would be too shallow, and that they would depend on their old hands, has been proved wrong. Poborsky is 32, and Nedved celebrates the same birthday this year, but others are ready to replace them. Against Germany, having qualified already as group winners, they dropped nine of their first team and still eliminated the World Cup finalists. Marek Heinz and Jaroslav Plasil, two of the team’s gifted stand-ins, were inspired, if not by Smicer, then at least by the standards of their predecessors. More has been demanded of developing players since youth academies were set up after the 1989 revolution. "You can choose only two sports in Czech: ice hockey or football," says Smicer. "Maybe they see us as their heroes and they try to be the same. I came from a little village where anybody who wanted to be a footballer turned out to be a good player. There was nothing else. We are not a big country. We have only 10 million people, a bit like London, but we have a good generation coming through."
Their under-21 side reached the final of the Euro Championship in 2000, before lifting the trophy two years later. The coaches then were Karel Bruckner and Miroslav Beranek, now manager and assistant of the senior team. Bruckner, in particular, has been a fascinating figure at these finals, with his thick, white mop of hair and his world-weary jibes.
"It helps that he knows the players really well," says Smicer. "He knows what he can get from them."
Bruckner, who is 64, has no experience outwith the Czech Republic, but the same cannot be said of his squad. In 1976, when most of the team were Slovakian, all but Panenka played in their homeland. Now Poborksy, who is seeing out his career with Sparta Prague, is regarded as an exception to the rule. Goalkeeper Petr Cech, the biggest success of the 2002 vintage, will start next season with Chelsea.
The result for Bruckner is a mix of youth and experience, a team far from watertight at the back, but more than willing to make up for it going forward. Milan Baros, another product of the under-21s’ success, has been a revelation in Portugal, scoring in every match and putting behind him the broken ankle that kept him out of last season’s Liverpool team. "After an injury like that, you have to come back and show you can still play at a high level," he says. "I am happy that I have done that."
Bruckner is a chess-playing champion of tactical turnarounds. If there is a need for goals, he partners Baros up front with the lumbering Jan Koller. Two down against Holland, he flung Smicer on to the flank, and allowed Nedved freedom to flourish behind the strikers. With Borussia Dortmund playmaker Tomas Rosicky striving to justify his reputation as the ‘Little Mozart’, and Tomas Galasek of Ajax in the holding role, the Czechs’ undoubted strength is in midfield.
Their character, too, is admirable. A stubborn aversion to defeat was reflected in a qualifying campaign bettered only by France, a consistency they have carried into the tournament proper. "We won all three of our group games from at least a goal down," says Baros. "The win against Germany showed that we have players all through the squad who can compete at this level. We don’t have a first team and a second team, we have a squad of 23 who can all do well here."
The players are as passionate as their supporters. Marek Jankulovski, the Udinese defender, showed his true colours last week by dyeing his beard in the colours of the national flag. Should they lose in Porto today, it will be the tournament’s loss. You can take the Czechs out of the European Championship, but you can’t take the European Championship out of the Czechs.
