{"id":14325,"date":"2025-11-18T20:06:38","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T20:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/18\/czech-republic-strips-soucek-of-captaincy-after-world-cup-qualifiers\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T20:06:38","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T20:06:38","slug":"czech-republic-strips-soucek-of-captaincy-after-world-cup-qualifiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/18\/czech-republic-strips-soucek-of-captaincy-after-world-cup-qualifiers\/","title":{"rendered":"Czech Republic strips Soucek of captaincy after World Cup qualifiers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>PRAGUE (AP) &#8211; The Czech Republic Football Association on Tuesday stripped Tom\u00e1\u0161 Soucek of his captaincy and denied financial bonuses to national team players as punishment for ignoring fans after the final. <span class=\"LinkEnhancement\">world cup<\/span> Preliminary match against Gibraltar.<\/p>\n<p>The Czech Republic, who were assured of second place in Group L, won their home game 6-0 in Olomouc on Monday, but their players did not express their gratitude to their loyal fans who had criticized their performance in the qualifying campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Teams will be seeded in Thursday&#8217;s lottery. <span class=\"LinkEnhancement\">16 team playoffs<\/span> Next March, they will compete for the remaining four spots in Europe at next summer&#8217;s World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>The association apologized to fans and said the players would not receive financial bonuses for the match. Instead, the money is donated to charity. Soucek will lose his captaincy in the next game.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fans have the full right to express their dissent against the unsatisfactory performances in recent matches,&#8221; the association said in a statement. &#8220;The reaction from the players should have been exactly the opposite. They should have thanked their loyal fans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At Monday&#8217;s rally, supporters repeatedly chanted &#8220;fight for the Czech Republic&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The Czech Republic struggled in the qualifying round, but <span class=\"LinkEnhancement\">Coach Ivan Hasek fired<\/span> After a humiliating 2-1 defeat to the Faroe Islands last month.<\/p>\n<p>Jaroslav Koestl, Ha\u0161ek&#8217;s assistant, led the team to 1-0 friendly wins over San Marino and Gibraltar.<\/p>\n<p>A new coach could be named ahead of the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>The last time the Czech Republic qualified for this tournament was in 2006.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP Soccer: <span class=\"LinkEnhancement\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/czech-team-punished-fans-2348cd8afe49f12fb34622cc40e3d280\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PRAGUE (AP) &#8211; The Czech Republic Football Association on Tuesday stripped Tom\u00e1\u0161 Soucek of his captaincy and denied financial bonuses to national team players as punishment for ignoring fans after the final. world cup Preliminary match against Gibraltar. The Czech Republic, who were assured of second place in Group L, won their home game 6-0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Czech Republic strips Soucek of captaincy after World Cup qualifiers - EPL VIP \u2013 Latest English Premier League News &amp; Updates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/18\/czech-republic-strips-soucek-of-captaincy-after-world-cup-qualifiers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Czech Republic strips Soucek of captaincy after World Cup qualifiers - EPL VIP \u2013 Latest English Premier League News &amp; Updates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"PRAGUE (AP) &#8211; The Czech Republic Football Association on Tuesday stripped Tom\u00e1\u0161 Soucek of his captaincy and denied financial bonuses to national team players as punishment for ignoring fans after the final. world cup Preliminary match against Gibraltar. 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