Next Sunday, 16th of November 2014, a super inspired Czech Republic team will measure forces with an equally inspired Iceland side at the Doosan Arena in Plzen for the Euro 2016 Qualifiers, on a match that will provide a comfortable lead at the top of table to the team that manages to claim the three points at the end of the 90 minutes.

The excellent work of Pavel Vrba at the Czech team is already becoming blatantly obvious, as he managed to quickly rescue a team that had been adrift for quite some time. Czech Republic failed to book their ticket for the Brazil’s World Cup last Summer and, although they have managed to win their two last matches of the world cup qualifying round, this wasn’t enough to catch Denmark on the second place of the table and grant that position at their group, right behind Italy.

Their new boss, Pavel Vrba, who did an exquisite job at the helm of Viktoria Plzen, brought new ideas to the team and, at the same time, he also managed to restore some of the past winning mentality that they had apparently lost. The win against Holland on their first qualifying match was probably the catalyst needed for the excellent campaign the Czech have been doing so far and their excellent win at Turkey on the second match of the group stage didn’t come as a surprise. Led by a rejuvenated Tomas Rosicky and by Petr Cech’s experience, the Czech are probably on the way to replicate their amazing displays from the 1996 European championship, during which, by the hand of fantastic footballers such as Pavel Nedved, Patrick Berger and Karel Poborsky, the Czech reached the final but were defeated by the all-powerful Germany on extra-time.

The upcoming match against Iceland will certainly not be an easy one, especially if we have in mind the excellent campaign the Nordic team has been doing so far.

Despite their recent defeat to Belgium on a friendly match during this week, Iceland have been going through a particularly fantastic moment with three wins on their respective qualifying matches so far. As well as the Czech side, Iceland have managed to defeat the other two major contenders of the group, Holland (2-0) and Turkey (3-0) at Reykjavik and are now at the top of the group together with their next Sunday’s opponents, with eight goals scored and none conceded so far. These numbers reflect how good the work from the managerial duo composed by Lars Lagerback and Heimir Hallgrimsson is and how motivated the team is right now.

By playing at home, the Czech are slight favourites for the upcoming clash, although and given the Icelandic team’s quality, the match’s outcome is totally unpredictable.

Czech Republic

Stats: W-3 L-2 D-0

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Iceland

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

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Possible Line-ups

Czech Republic (4-2-3-1) - Cech - Kaderabek - Sivok - Kadlec - Limbersky - Darida - Vacha - Dockal - Rosicky - Pilar - Lafata

Iceland (4-4-2) - Halldorsson - Bjarnason - Sigurdsson - Arnason - Skulason - B. Bjarnason - Gunnarsson - G. Sigurdsson - Hallfredsson - Sigthorsson - Finnbogason

Prediction

Czech Republic 2 Iceland 1