In the press conference that followed Thursday’s World Cup playoffs draw, Heimir Hallgrímsson made a rather interesting revelation in an offhand way. Responding to a question about how the Czech Republic had fired their coach last month after losing to the Faroe Islands, he replied: “We lost in Armenia and almost fired the coach then ...”
The idea that Hallgrímsson was close to the sack back in September – apparently closer than we realised at the time – seems, in retrospect, mad. Yes the Hungary and Armenia games were bad, but who sacks a manager one week into the qualifiers? Maybe Hallgrímsson was saved by the awareness in Abbottstown that if you fire a manager just two matches into the campaign you hired him for, then it’s you, not he, that looks like the idiot.
Since then, as we know, things have gone much better, culminating in last week’s incredible victories that took Ireland to the playoff place that few still seriously expected at the campaign’s halfway point.
The big decision Hallgrímsson made was abandoning the 4-2-3-1 system he’d spent a year working on, and reverting to the 3-4-2-1 (often in fact 5-4-1) that we saw so much during Stephen Kenny’s time as manager. It was a radical backtrack that didn’t look great for him at the time ... and then Ireland closed out the campaign with three wins. What are we to make of this? If the coach is to be criticised for making mistakes in the first window, then he must also be credited for quickly correcting them and delivering the outcome everyone hoped for.
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No question, Ireland enjoyed a little bit of luck – but it’s hard to be lucky without believing that the luck might just go your way, and under Hallgrímsson this belief seems to be taking root. The team still has a bad habit of conceding first – it’s happened in six competitive games out of eight in 2025 – but they recovered to win three and draw one of those six matches. And whenever Ireland have taken the lead, they’ve gone on to win.
[ Ireland’s largely painful history of major tournament playoffsOpens in new window ]
The idea that fortune smiles on the Icelander was bolstered by Thursday’s playoff draw, which placed Ireland in a four-team path where the two higher-ranked sides both seem to be in periods of decline rather than growth. On paper, Czech Republic look the least intimidating of the four semi-final opponents Ireland could have been pitted against.
Seeking a Czech voice to give some insight into their current situation on the Second Captains podcast, we texted a well-known former Czech international, who politely declined the opportunity to comment, saying “I don’t want to talk about Czech national team because it’s a big mess right now ...” He added a couple of crying-laughing emojis.
So what kind of mess are we talking about? Czech Republic lost 2-1 away to the Faroe Islands last month, and three days later sacked head coach Ivan Hasek and two of his three assistants. The remaining assistant – 35-year-old Jaroslav Köstl, who has no previous experience as a head coach – was asked to stay on as interim manager for last week’s games against San Marino and Gibraltar.
The Czechs won both games, but the 1-0 friendly victory over San Marino was regarded by supporters as almost as big a disgrace as the defeat to the Faroes. Tomas Soucek scored the only goal but also missed a penalty in a generally dreadful effort by the Czechs.
In the next game, a more comfortable 6-0 win against Gibraltar, the Czech ultras spent large parts of the night chanting “fight for Czechia”. The players, annoyed by the implication that they weren’t already fighting for Czechia, chose not to acknowledge that section of the crowd at the end of the game, causing predictable uproar.
The Czech FA took the side of the fans. Their statement declared that the fans had a full right to criticise the team, and that “the reaction of the players should have been quite the contrary. They should have thanked the [ultra] fans.” The association decided that the players’ match fees would be donated to charity, and Soucek – for years the linchpin of this team – was stripped of the captaincy for one match, which will be the playoff semi-final against Ireland.
The effect all this will have on a match that is still four months away is hard to estimate. Will the desire to win the fans back over – or even just to prove them wrong – rally the players together, or will the hostility fester? Will Köstl still be in the job? Nobody knows.
Clearly the FA would like to replace him with a more experienced coach; the problem is that not many experienced, high-profile coaches seem desperate to manage the Czech national team right now. The squad is not overburdened with world-class talent and the association pays less than the FAI, with former coach Hasek’s salary estimated at the time of Euro 2024 at €250,000 – less than 40 per cent of what Hallgrímsson earns. In Ireland we know from recent experience that finding the right international coach is not always a simple job.
The match is likely to take place at Slavia Prague’s Fortuna Arena, where the capacity is just under 20,000 – meaning Ireland’s allocation is likely to be less than 1,000. However, when Croatia drew 0-0 in Prague last month, it was evident that Croatian fans had somehow managed to get their hands on rather a large number of home tickets, meaning the balance of support in the ground was close to 50-50.
Amid a general slump in morale, it looked like a lot of the home fans had cashed in and checked out. You would expect, though, that the prospect of a do-or-die home playoff will feel more exciting than a regular qualifier in a group where first place seemed out of reach and second place already assured.
Overall the Czech Republic are a similar team to Hungary, whom Ireland proved capable of beating. The thing Hallgrímsson was happiest about on Thursday was the fact that the playoff final, should Ireland get that far, will be in Dublin. Denmark? North Macedonia? As long as it’s a final and not a Fifa-enforced friendly between losing semi-finalists, who cares?
