Czech Republic at the FIFA World Cup

This is a record of the Czech Republic's results at the FIFA World Cup, including those of Czechoslovakia which is considered as both theirs and Slovakia's predecessor by FIFA. The FIFA World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946, due to World War II.

The tournament consists of two parts, the qualification phase and the final phase (officially called the World Cup Finals). The qualification phase, which currently takes place over the three years preceding the Finals, is used to determine which teams qualify for the Finals. The current format of the Finals involves 32 teams competing for the title, at venues within the host nation (or nations) over a period of about a month. The World Cup Finals is the most widely viewed sporting event in the world, with an estimated 715.1 million people watching the 2006 tournament final.^[1]

Czechoslovakia has been one of the better performing national teams in the history of the World Cup, having ended twice as runners-up, in 1934 and in 1962. Between 1930 and 1994 they qualified for 8 out of 13 World Cups they played qualifiers for, and did not enter in two other World Cups.

After the political and peaceful split-up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the official successor football teams of Czech Republic and Slovakia have been less successful at the World Cup than Czechoslovakia, qualifying only for one out of the seven tournaments held since (the 2006 FIFA World Cup and 2010 FIFA World Cup) without surviving the group phase and got eliminated in the last 16 respectively.

Throughout the World Cup history, Brazil became the team's historical rival. The two countries have met each other five times but the Czechs and Slovaks (always Czechoslovakia) never won, with three victories for the Brazilian side and two draws.^[2] Two other historical opponents in the finals were (West) Germany and Italy with three encounters each: Czechoslovakia won, drew and lost once against the Germans^[3] and the matches against Italy all ended in a defeat.^[4][5]

Year	Round	Position	Pld	W	D*	L	GF	GA
as  Czechoslovakia
1930	Did not enter
1934	Runners-up	2nd	4	3	0	1	9	6
1938	Quarter-finals	5th	3	1	1	1	5	3
1950	Did not qualify
1954	Group stage	14th	2	0	0	2	0	7
1958	Group stage	9th	4	1	1	2	9	6
1962	Runners-up	2nd	6	3	1	2	7	7
1966	Did not qualify
1970	Group stage	15th	3	0	0	3	2	7
1974	Did not qualify
1978
1982	Group stage	19th	3	0	2	1	2	4
1986	Did not qualify
1990	Quarter-finals	6th	5	3	0	2	10	5
1994	Did not qualify
as  Czech Republic
1998	Did not qualify
2002
2006	Group stage	20th	3	1	0	2	3	4
2010	Did not qualify
2014
as  Czechia
2018	Did not qualify
2022
2026	To be determined
2030
2034
Total	9/25	-	33	12	5	16	47	49

*Draws include knockout matches decided via penalty shoot-out

Czech Republic's World Cup record
First Match	Czechoslovakia 2–1 Romania  (27 May 1934; Trieste, Italy)
Biggest Win	Czechoslovakia 6–1 Argentina  (15 June 1958; Helsingborg, Sweden)
Biggest Defeat	Austria 5–0 Czechoslovakia  (19 June 1954; Zürich, Switzerland)
Best Result	Runners-up in 1934 and 1962
Worst Result	Group stage in 1954, 1958, 1970, 1982 and 2006

World Cup	Round	Opponent	Score	Result	Venue	Scorers
1934	Round of 16	Romania	2–1	W	Trieste	A. Puč, O. Nejedlý
	Quarter-finals	Switzerland	3–2	W	Turin	F. Svoboda, J. Sobotka, O. Nejedlý
	Semi-finals	Germany	3–1	W	Rome	O. Nejedlý (3)
	Final	Italy	1–2 (a.e.t.)	L	Rome	A. Puč
1938	Round of 16	Netherlands	3–0 (a.e.t.)	W	Le Havre	J. Košťálek, J. Zeman, O. Nejedlý
	Quarter-finals	Brazil	1–1 (a.e.t.)	D	Bordeaux	O. Nejedlý
		Brazil	1–2	L	Bordeaux	V. Kopecký
1954	Group stage	Uruguay	0–2	L	Bern	—
		Austria	0–5	L	Zürich	—
1958	Group stage	Northern Ireland	0–1	L	Halmstad	—
		West Germany	2–2	D	Helsingborg	M. Dvořák, Z. Zikán
		Argentina	6–1	W	Helsingborg	Z. Zikán (2), V. Hovorka (2), M. Dvořák, J. Feureisl
		Northern Ireland	1–2 (a.e.t.)	L	Malmö	Z. Zikán
1962	Group stage	Spain	1–0	W	Viña del Mar	J. Štibrányi
		Brazil	0–0	D	Viña del Mar	—
		Mexico	1–3	L	Viña del Mar	V. Mašek
	Quarter-finals	Hungary	1–0	W	Rancagua	A. Scherer
	Semi-finals	Yugoslavia	3–1	W	Viña del Mar	A. Scherer (2), J. Kadraba
	Final	Brazil	1–3	L	Santiago	J. Masopust
1970	Group stage	Brazil	1–4	L	Guadalajara	L. Petráš
		Romania	1–2	L	Guadalajara	L. Petráš
		England	0–1	L	Guadalajara	—
1982	Group stage	Kuwait	1–1	D	Valladolid	A. Panenka
		England	0–2	L	Bilbao	—
		France	1–1	D	Valladolid	A. Panenka
1990	Group stage	United States	5–1	W	Florence	T. Skuhravý (2), M. Bílek, I. Hašek, M. Luhový
		Austria	1–0	W	Florence	M. Bílek
		Italy	0–2	L	Rome	—
	Round of 16	Costa Rica	4–1	W	Bari	T. Skuhravý (3), L. Kubík
	Quarter-finals	West Germany	0–1	L	Milan	—
2006	Group stage	United States	3–0	W	Gelsenkirchen	T. Rosický (2), J. Koller
		Ghana	0–2	L	Cologne	—
		Italy	0–2	L	Hamburg	—

FIFA World Cup matches (by team)
Opponent	Wins	Draws	Losses	Total	Goals Scored	Goals Conceded
Argentina	1	0	0	1	6	1
Austria	1	0	1	2	1	5
Brazil	0	2	3	5	4	10
Costa Rica	1	0	0	1	4	1
England	0	0	2	2	0	3
France	0	1	0	1	1	1
Germany	1	1	1	3	5	4
Ghana	0	0	1	1	0	2
Hungary	1	0	0	1	1	0
Italy	0	0	3	3	1	6
Kuwait	0	1	0	1	1	1
Mexico	0	0	1	1	1	3
Netherlands	1	0	0	1	3	0
Northern Ireland	0	0	2	2	1	3
Romania	1	0	1	2	3	3
Serbia	1	0	0	1	3	1
Spain	1	0	0	1	1	0
Switzerland	1	0	0	1	3	2
United States	2	0	0	2	8	1
Uruguay	0	0	1	1	0	2

Team Awards

• Second Place 1934
• Second Place 1962

Individual Awards

• Silver Ball 1962: Josef Masopust
• Bronze Ball 1934: Oldřich Nejedlý
• Golden Boot 1934: Oldřich Nejedlý
• Silver Boot 1990: Tomáš Skuhravý
• Golden Glove 1938: František Plánička
• Golden Glove 1962: Viliam Schrojf

• Czech Republic at the UEFA European Championship

• Czech Republic at FIFA
• World Cup Finals Statistics