The Czech Republic will return to Wembley during this international break, more than 30 years after their most memorable summer in England ended in the narrowest of defeats. They face England twice in Nations League Group A3, meeting in Prague on 29 September and in London on 6 October. The Czechs have played at Wembley since the Euro ’96 final, but this visit falls on the anniversary of the tournament that defined a generation.
Euro ’96 was the first European Championship staged after Czechoslovakia separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Few expected the Czech team to make any impression at all — least of all the players themselves. They arrived as outsiders, with most of the squad still based in the domestic league, and several had booked holidays to begin straight after a group stage that pitted them against Germany, Italy and Russia. Vladimir Smicer, meanwhile, was due to get married.
Midfielder Patrik Berger has recalled how little the Czechs registered even with their opening opponents. Speaking to the BBC Sporting Witness podcast earlier this year, he described a conversation with his then Borussia Dortmund team-mate Jurgen Kohler, who was in the Germany squad. “He was asking me what my plans were for the summer. I said ‘I’m going to the Euros’ and he said ‘to watch games?'” Berger recalled. “I said ‘no, we’re playing you guys the first game of the group stages and then we will play in the final’ — and he was laughing.”
The Czechs lost that opener 2-0 to Germany at Old Trafford, then beat Italy 2-1 at Anfield. Their progress hinged on the final group fixture against Russia at Anfield — the future home of both Berger and Smicer — where Smicer’s late equaliser secured a 3-3 draw. That was enough to send them through, because Italy failed to beat Germany in the other game, the match finishing 0-0. “We knew we were still in it, but we didn’t know what the other result is,” Berger said. “One minute we’re not qualifying, the next it was we qualified, so we didn’t really know. After the final whistle it took a few minutes before we realised we qualified for the quarter-finals.”
In the quarter-finals came one of the most memorable goals in European Championship history, Karel Poborsky scooping the ball over Vitor Baia from the edge of the box to give the Czech Republic a 1-0 win over Portugal at Villa Park. A goalless semi-final against France at Old Trafford followed, and the Czechs prevailed 6-5 on penalties. Their spot-kicks were converted by players including future Ballon d’Or winner Pavel Nedved, Berger and Poborsky, who would return to the same ground weeks later as a newly signed Manchester United player.
Berger makes no attempt to romanticise the experience of a shootout. “You don’t want to go there,” he said. “If someone says something different they’re lying. Nobody wants to take that penalty.” He added that the squad “couldn’t believe” they had beaten France. “We were living the dream,” Berger said. “It was an amazing feeling. An amazing moment for the country. To get to the final was kind of like a miracle for everyone.”
Two days before the final, Smicer travelled back to Prague to get married. Thousands of Czech fans turned out in the city centre for the occasion, but the midfielder had to return to England the same day.
The Czech Republic then faced Germany at Wembley and led after 59 minutes through Berger’s drilled penalty — a kick he was not originally meant to take. “The only thing in my mind was hit it as hard as possible on target,” he said, explaining that he “could see nobody really wanted to take the ball”. Oliver Bierhoff equalised 14 minutes later, and then scored the first ever golden goal in a major tournament final to give Germany the trophy.
“It wasn’t meant to be,” Berger said. “I’d love to be European champion, but silver for us was like a gold because it opened doors to so many of us. And it opened doors to the generation after us. I have no regrets. Thanks to Euro 96, because it was played in England, I caught the eye of Liverpool. There were 100,000 waiting for us in Prague celebrating. Even silver felt like winning the tournament for us.”
As Czechoslovakia, the country won the European Championship in 1976 and lost two World Cup finals, in 1934 and 1962. But the Czech Republic’s first tournament as a separate nation remains the last time they reached a final. They have still enjoyed notable European Championships, reaching the semi-finals in 2004 and the quarter-finals in 2012 and 2021.
The 2004 squad blended youth — Petr Cech, Milan Baros and Tomas Rosicky among them — with the experience of Smicer, Berger and Poborsky, and lost to eventual winners Greece in the last four. Ondrej Zlamal, a Prague-based football journalist, believes that side and their performances “were even better” than in 1996. “This generation with Nedved and others culminated in 2004 and we had a feeling we should have won the Euros. We played better football than in 1996,” he said, calling it “the second highlight of the golden generation”.
The years since have been leaner. Their only two World Cups in that period have ended in group-stage exits, and Zlamal was blunt about the most recent showing. “The performance this summer was really disappointing,” he said. “There is a simple answer to why [the team have not lived up to the heights of the past] — we don’t have such talented footballers as we had. We don’t have enough players in the top teams like we used to.” He recalled watching the 1976 final as a six-year-old, when his father told him: “remember this because you won’t see it any more.” Zlamal added: “I don’t believe this generation can reach such a success because the competition and football is much bigger. Miracles happen and maybe there could be a new generation which could be surprising as 1996… but I don’t believe it will happen again.”
A new era is beginning under Spaniard Santi Denia, the first foreign manager in the national side’s history. His first squad — for Nations League games against Croatia, England and Spain — contains seven players with either no caps or one cap, although none are aged under 22.
Thirty years after Berger, Smicer, Poborsky and Nedved endured their north London heartbreak, the old Wembley has long since been replaced by a modern stadium. Denia and his players could pick a worse setting to deliver a statement performance.