Twenty years is a long time to wait for anything. For Czech football fans, it was the gap between hearing their anthem at a World Cup and hearing it again, between relevance on the sport’s grandest stage and watching from the couch while other nations competed.
That wait ended in Guadalajara. Czechia scored their first FIFA World Cup goal since 2006, a milestone that caps one of the more quietly dramatic qualification stories heading into the 2026 tournament.
The long road back
Czechia’s last World Cup appearance came in Germany in 2006. The breakthrough arrived on April 1, 2026. Czechia and Denmark played to a 2-2 draw through extra time in their qualifying playoff, setting up a penalty shootout that would determine which nation booked a ticket to North America.
Michal Sadílek stepped up and buried the decisive penalty. Czechia was going to the World Cup.
