West Ham United duo Tomáš Souček and Vladimír Coufal are preparing for another tough UEFA Nations League clash on Thursday evening, as they take on Portugal at the Estádio José Alvalade in Lisbon.
The Czechs have made a promising start to Group A2, beating Switzerland 2-1 in Prague a week ago, before almost pulling off a victory over Spain - Iñigo Martínez finding a leveller for the Spanish deep into injury time to leave the game tied at 2-2 in their second group match.
The game against Spain was special on a personal level for Souček, who made his 50th appearance for his country in the draw.
The opening results leave Souček, Coufal and their teammates in second place, level on points with Portugal and only behind on goal difference.
After such a strong start, Souček is keen to prove that the Czech Republic belong in the company of the very best nations in Europe by picking up a result against Portugal.
We’ve enjoyed the opening UEFA Nations League matches so far.
Although it’s the off-season and lots of other players are away on holiday – it’s great that we were able to get into this division and we can play here against these teams.
We want to prove that we belong here, and we want to stay in the group for as long as we possibly can.
We’re glad to have a group like this, even if it puts us up against difficult opposition.
50! That's not my age, but the number of games played in the jersey of the Czech national team! 😂 51. against Portugal incoming!
— Tomáš Souček (@tomassoucek28) June 7, 2022
It's unbelievable how fast time flies. It's like yesterday I played my first game.#ceskarepre #milestone #nationalteam pic.twitter.com/0DV7WX22FC
We went into this campaign wanting to keep ourselves in League A.
We are very happy with four points from the games against Spain and Switzerland and now we face another tough test in Portugal. It’s a team filled with quality, but we will fight again to pick up a result.
Each of the teams that we’re facing in this group have quality, they all have something a little different within their squads. Portugal is a little bit more direct that Spain, but we’re ready for the challenge ahead.
The recipe for dealing with Cristiano Ronaldo is a hard one to find, almost everyone is trying to find a way of stopping him.
Together with Lionel Messi, they have been the best players in the world in the last ten years and they prove it every year. I’ve played against Ronaldo twice in the past year with West Ham – he’s raised the profile of the Premier League again with his arrival.
It’s going to be a team effort to make sure that he doesn’t get any opportunities to score – our main goal is to keep a clean sheet against Portugal.
His teammates rely on him a lot, they look for him a lot and we will have to watch out for him.
I already miss the Premier League.
Vlad and I only had five days off before we joined up with the national team. It was great to link up with the squad and get back to playing.
As I said, we want to perform well against these top sides, and we want to stay in their company in this group for as long as we possibly can.
Czech Republic take on Portugal in Group B on Thursday 9 June, with the action getting underway at the Estádio José Alvalade at 7.45pm BST.
We will have a report on all the action from the match in Lisbon on whufc.com shortly after the full-time whistle sounds.
