Czech Republic vs England: UEFA EURO 2020 match background, facts and stats

Having each earned a home win when they were paired together in qualifying, the stakes are even higher as the Czech Republic and England meet again in the final round of UEFA EURO 2020 Group D matches.

• The teams are level on four points at the top of the section, the Czechs having beaten Scotland (2-0) and drawn with Croatia (1-1) while England followed an opening defeat of Croatia (1-0) with a goalless draw against the Scots.

• The Czech Republic are through and will win the group if they avoid defeat against England. They will finish second if they lose and Scotland beat Croatia in the other Matchday 3 game. They will only finish third if they lose and Croatia win by enough to overtake them on overall goal difference.

• England are through and will finish top if they beat Czech Republic. They will only finish third if they lose and Scotland win by enough to overtake them on overall goal difference.

Previous meetings

• The two qualifying contests between the teams proved to be contrasting affairs. England eased to a 5-0 victory at Wembley in their opening fixture on 22 March 2019, Raheem Sterling scoring a hat-trick and Harry Kane also on target from the penalty spot. A late Tomáš Kalas own goal completed the Czech Republic's heaviest defeat as an independent nation. The match featured an England debut for substitute Declan Rice.

• England looked set for another straightforward evening when Kane struck, again from the spot, after five minutes of the reverse fixture at Prague's Eden Arena on 11 October 2019, but Jakub Brabec levelled five minutes later with his first international goal before substitute Zdeněk Ondrášek marked his international debut with an 85th-minute winner.

• That was the Czech Republic's first victory against England, who had only lost twice in 13 games against Czechoslovakia, most recently 2-1 in Bratislava in October 1975.

• That result came in qualifying for the 1976 UEFA European Championship; England had won the home game 3-0 at Wembley but it was the Czechoslovakians who went on to reach the four-team final tournament and, ultimately, were crowned European champions.

• While this is their first meeting at a EURO finals, England and Czechoslovakia were twice drawn together in the group stage of the FIFA World Cup, England winning 1-0 in the Mexican city of Guadalajara in 1970 and 2-0 in Bilbao, Spain 12 years later.

• The Czech Republic's away record against England is D1 L2; including their results as Czechoslovakia, they have never won against England in England, drawing only two of their eight contests.

EURO facts: Czech Republic

• The Czech Republic have qualified for every EURO final tournament since Czechoslovakia split in 1993.

• They won the competition as part of Czechoslovakia in 1976 and reached the final in their first appearance as the Czech Republic in 1996, losing 2-1 to Germany.

• The Czech Republic also reached the semi-finals at UEFA EURO 2004 and the quarter-finals eight years later.

• In 2016, the Czechs finished bottom of their group having picked up one point from three games. Losses to Spain (0-1) and Turkey (0-2) sandwiched a 2-2 draw against Croatia in which the Czechs had rallied from two goals down. That was the only time they had avoided defeat – or found the net – in their last four EURO finals games prior to Matchday 1.

• Jaroslav Šilhavý's charges qualified for UEFA EURO 2020 as Group A runners-up behind England. That 5-0 loss at Wembley in their first fixture was one of three defeats the Czechs suffered in qualifying, although five wins ensured they finished with 15 points, four above third-placed Kosovo.

• The Czechs' record at EURO '96 in England was W2 D2 L2; the 2-1 golden-goal defeat in the final was their only match at Wembley in the tournament.

• The Czech Republic have never won at Wembley, where their overall record is D1 L3; they have conceded 11 goals in those four matches. As Czechoslovakia, their record at Wembley was also D1 L3; furthermore, they lost 5-4 at Tottenham's former ground White Hart Lane in a 1937 friendly, their only other game in London.

EURO facts: England

• This is England's tenth appearance in the UEFA European Championship; they finished third in 1968 and also reached the semi-finals on home soil in 1996.

• England failed to qualify for the final tournament in 2008, the only time they have missed out since 1984.

• A team managed by Roy Hodgson won all ten qualifiers on the way to UEFA EURO 2016, where they finished second behind Wales in their section after taking five points from three matches, only to be shocked by Iceland in the round of 16 (1-2).

• Gareth Southgate's side finished top of Group A in UEFA EURO 2020 qualifying, winning seven of their eight matches (L1) to progress six points ahead of the Czech Republic. That 2-1 loss in Prague was England's sole defeat.

• Kane finished as the overall top scorer in the qualifying group stage with 12 goals, including at least one in every game. He also provided five assists.

• Sterling was involved in 15 of England's 37 qualifying goals, scoring eight himself with seven assists, and also got the winner against Croatia on Matchday 1.

• The defeat by Iceland in the last 16 at UEFA EURO 2016 is England's only reverse in 13 EURO finals matches (W6 D6), with the eliminations on penalties by Italy (2012) and Portugal (2004) counted as draws.

• England's record at Wembley is now W184 D73 L39. They have won ten of their last 12 matches at the stadium, including UEFA EURO 2020 qualifiers against the Czech Republic (5-0), Bulgaria (4-0) and Montenegro (7-0); they have lost only two of their last 24 matches at Wembley (W17 D5), most recently a 1-0 UEFA Nations League loss to Denmark on 14 October 2020.

• England have never lost in the finals of a major tournament at Wembley (W8 D4), though they were defeated on penalties there by Germany after a 1-1 draw in the semi-final of EURO '96.

Links and trivia

• Have played together:
Tomáš Souček, Vladimír Coufal & Declan Rice (West Ham 2020–)

• Have played in England:
Tomáš Souček (West Ham 2020–)
Vladimír Coufal (West Ham 2020–)
Ondřej Čelůstka (Sunderland 2013/14 loan)
Aleš Matějů (Brighton & Hove Albion 2017–19)
Tomáš Kalas (Chelsea 2010–19, Middlesbrough 2015–16 loan, Fulham 2016–18 loan, Bristol City 2018–)
Matěj Vydra (Watford 2012–16, West Brom 2013/14 loan, Reading 2015/16 loan, Derby 2016–18, Burnley 2018–)

• Petr Ševčík scored twice in Slavia Praha's 4-3 loss at Chelsea in the 2018/19 UEFA Europa League quarter-final second leg, Souček getting the Czech club's other goal.

• Southgate was England coach during the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship in the Czech Republic, his side finishing bottom of their group with three points from three matches.

• The Czech Republic's all-time record appearance maker Petr Čech spent the bulk of his career in England. A Chelsea player from 2004 to 2015, he won four Premier League titles, the 2012 UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Europa League the following year, plus four FA Cups and three English League Cups. He retired in 2019 after a four-year spell at Arsenal, winning another FA Cup in 2017.

• Souček scored ten Premier League goals for West Ham in 2020/21, including the winner past England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford in a 1-0 victory at Everton on 1 January.

• Tomáš Holeš scored an added-time equaliser for Slavia Praha in London against Arsenal in the first leg of the 2020/21 UEFA Europa League quarter-finals, though the English club recovered to win the return leg in Prague 4-0, with Bukayo Saka among the scorers, and advance 5-1 on aggregate.

Latest news

Czech Republic

• Patrik Schick has scored all three of the Czech Republic's goals at UEFA EURO 2020, taking his overall international tally to 14 in 28 matches. He also scored in the team's final pre-tournament warm-up fixture, a 3-1 win against Albania in Prague on 8 June, so has four in his last three matches.

• The Czech Republic's 2-0 win against Scotland is their only victory in six EURO final tournament encounters (D2 L3) since they defeated Poland 1-0 on Matchday 3 at UEFA EURO 2012.

• Schick's double against Scotland was only the third for the Czech Republic at a EURO final tournament, after Vladimír Šmicer in 2000 and Milan Baroš in 2004, who both scored twice against Denmark. Schick's second goal was struck from a distance of 49.7 metres, the furthest out in EURO finals history.

• Lukáš Masopust and Ondřej Čelůstka also found the net in the friendly win against Albania – a result that ended a three-match winless run for the Czech Republic, who four days earlier had crashed to a 4-0 defeat against Italy in Bologna, a game in which Michal Sadílek came off the bench to make his international debut.

• There has been a major overhaul of the Czech squad in the five years since UEFA EURO 2016, with just three players remaining from that tournament in France – captain Vladimír Darida, goalkeeper Tomáš Vaclík and defender Pavel Kadeřábek. Another player with EURO finals experience is striker Tomáš Pekhart, who was a squad member alongside Darida in 2012. Other than Schick, no member of this year's squad has ever scored a EURO finals goal.

• There are five players in Jaroslav Šilhavý's selection from the Slavia Praha side that went unbeaten domestically in 2020/21, winning the Czech league and cup double, and also reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa League – Masopust, Jan Bořil, Tomáš Holeš, Petr Ševčík and David Zima.

• Pekhart was also a Polish league title winner in the 2020/21 season with Legia Warszawa, topping the Ekstraklasa scoring charts with 22 goals, while fellow striker Michael Krmenčík spent the first half of the season with prospective Belgian champions Club Brugge before moving on loan to PAOK, with whom he won the Greek Cup, scoring the late winner in the final against champions Olympiacos.

• Sparta Praha's 18-year-old striker Adam Hložek, the youngest member of Šilhavý's squad and a substitute against both Scotland and Croatia, was the joint top scorer in the 2020/21 Czech Liga with 15 goals.

• Former Slavia players Tomáš Souček and Vladimír Coufal were both instrumental in helping West Ham United finish sixth in the Premier League to secure a place in next season's UEFA Europa League group stage.

England

• England's goalless draw against Scotland was the first in 58 matches between the two rivals at Wembley. The result prolonged England's unbeaten run in the EURO finals group stage to ten matches (W6 D4).

• It was also England's third clean sheet in their last four EURO finals encounters, though they have managed just two goals themselves over that stretch, Raheem Sterling's Matchday 1 winner against Croatia the only one from open play.

• That goal was Sterling's first at a final tournament after drawing blanks in his 14 previous matches. He now has 15 goals in 63 internationals, including 13 in his last 18, and England have won all 11 matches in which he has scored.

• Jude Bellingham's appearance as a substitute against Croatia made him, at the age of 17 years and 349 days, the youngest player ever to feature at a EURO final tournament. However, he has since lost the record to Poland's Kacper Kozłowski, who was aged 17 years and 246 days when he came off the bench in his team's Matchday 2 draw with Spain.

• Even without Bellingham, England's starting XI against Scotland was their youngest ever at a major tournament with an average age of 25 years and 31 days and not one player over 28.

• The draw against Scotland ended England's seven-game winning streak, the previous three matches having all been won 1-0, including both UEFA EURO 2020 warm-up fixtures in Middlesbrough against Austria and Romania. Bukayo Saka notched his maiden international goal to win the first game, and Marcus Rashford scored the penalty that decided the second, in which Jordan Henderson, seeking his first international goal on his 59th appearance, had a second spot kick saved.

• England have kept clean sheets in seven of their last eight matches, conceding just one goal over that period, to Jakub Moder of Poland in a 2-1 FIFA World Cup qualifying win at Wembley on 31 March.

• Ben White made his England debut as a substitute against Austria and was

subsequently called up to the UEFA EURO 2020 squad to replace Trent Alexander-Arnold, injured late in the same game. Goalkeeper Sam Johnstone kept a clean sheet on his debut against Romania, when White made his first start.

• None of the seven players who featured in the 2021 UEFA Champions League final – Chelsea trio Ben Chilwell, Reece James and Mason Mount and Manchester City quartet Sterling, Phil Foden, John Stones and Kyle Walker – took part in either of the two Middlesbrough friendlies. Mount and the four City players were all in the starting XI against Croatia, with just Walker missing from the game against Scotland, when James replaced him at right-back.

• In addition to those three European champions at Chelsea and four Premier League title winners at Manchester City, the three foreign-based players in Gareth Southgate's squad all picked up winner's medals in 2020/21, Kieran Trippier helping Atlético de Madrid to the Spanish Liga title and Jadon Sancho and Bellingham scooping the German DFB-Pokal with Borussia Dortmund.

• Sterling is the only member of England's UEFA EURO 2020 squad to have scored a goal at the EURO finals. He is among just six of the current squad members who were involved at the 2016 tournament in France, the others being Henderson, Rashford, Stones, Walker and current captain Harry Kane.

• Yet to score in six games at the EURO finals, Kane's 15 goals in 13 qualifying appearances nevertheless make him England's all-time second highest scorer in the competition behind Wayne Rooney (20).

• Kane won the Golden Boot at the 2018 World Cup, with six goals, where Stones also scored twice and Trippier once. Other survivors from Southgate's squad in Russia, where England finished fourth, are Henderson, Rashford, Sterling, Walker, Jordan Pickford and Harry Maguire, who also found the net during the tournament. Sterling and Henderson are two of three survivors from the 2014 World Cup, alongside Luke Shaw.

• England have brought goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale into the squad to replace Dean Henderson, who had to withdraw with a hip injury.