The Faroe Islands are a footballing dwarf team – and also take on the Czech football team on Saturday in Euro 2024 qualifiers. An opponent who makes up for technical flaws with tough play.

“We needed to score early. And the best thing is to add more, it usually destroys these opponents,” Karel Rada thought about what might happen on the pitch on Saturday.

The former football representative, now coach of the women’s national team, was on the pitch in 1998 when the Czechs played in the Faroe Islands in a Euro 2000 qualifier.

The Czech team’s journey to the European championship did not go smoothly. An unexpected but even bigger problem occurred… in the Faroe Islands to be precise. “At that time the weather was very foggy, the conditions were beyond normal,” recalls Rada. The Czechs did not succeed, the Faroese defended their lives. They kick, bite, and always delay excruciatingly.

Neither saw the desired goal, which was eventually scored by Vladimír Šmicer. It was foggy.

“They say there are very strong emotions after the game, maybe they even beat up your cabin,” asks Jindřich Šídlo in the next part of the Records and Chargers football series. Representatives of the Faroe Islands felt aggrieved, according to them, the game-defining goal was unnatural. “Yes, there must have been emotions, there might even have been an attack on the executive team,” recalls Karel Rada.

Today, the Anabasis of that time in the Faroe Islands are not dramatically visible. Šmicer’s goal went down in history as the goal no one saw. And the Czech fulfilled his task in the match, gaining three points.

Even Saturday’s game will probably be a slog. “Nowadays, when the opponent is ready physically and tactically, defending responsibly, such matches are not going to be won easily,” Rada warned. And he added: “It’s going to hurt anyway.” Nordics are rarely amazed by technique, but they know how to play hard.

This requires a good patron, Zuzana Hodková, business reporter for Seznam Zpráv and – as we already know from the previous episode – one of Seznam’s biggest football fans, guessed right.

In Třebíč, former footballers produce equipment for footballers.

At first glance, the shin guards from the Foul company are smaller than former footballers know. Štěpán Rybníček and Pavlo Chalup, the owners of the company, were given regulations that did not specify the size of the visor – so their visor was smaller. And because it’s popular.

Carbon shields have advantages: they are more rigid and durable.

Defenders from Třebíč are used by footballers from the Czech top league, but Premier League stars also play in them – and they also played at the World Cup in Qatar.

Among the Czech people, the word is used by, for example, Adam Hložek, Vladimír Coufal, Lukáš Masopust or Ladislav Krejčí. However, Arsenal star Bukayo Saka also played as a defender for Vysočina. “It’s hard to find a better right wing at the moment,” claims Jindřich Šídlo in a video report from Třebíč. “Saka ordered our protector even though no one knew him yet. Neither did we,” recalls Pavel Chalupa. “He took them to the Arsenal cabin and the cabin was full,” explains Chalupa, how the best players in the world come to their place.

They send shields to world football stars for free, they make good advertisements for them. “But we know that there are already a number of less well-known players representing, for example, countries that have had less success in football,” said Štěpán Rybníček.

This video series Recorder and charger was created in collaboration with Hyundai, the official partner of the Czech national football team.