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Tomas Soucek and Vladimir Coufal: West Ham’s Czech ambassadors primed to take next step against England

 (AP)
(AP)

Tomas Soucek and Vladimir Coufal have taken West Ham and the Premier League by storm since arriving from the Czech Republic and are tonight ready for another landmark step.

The pair’s rise to prominence in east London, since arriving from Czech champions Slavia Prague, has helped re-established their nation on the footballing map.

"With them now there is a lot of light put on Czech football," Libor Secka, the Czech Ambassador to the United Kingdom, and newly adopted West Ham, tells Standard Sport. "This is important, we have high-quality teams.

"They really influenced the meaning of our football for English fans and they are continuing to do it at the European Championship.

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"Tomas is the most famous and most popular player in the Czech Republic. We have many players in the Bundesliga, Italy and France but from all these he is No1. Some were sad to see them go, not all were happy that they left, but they remain in contact with Slavia, the mother club, all the time."

Both players have helped bring Czech football back to the fore and instil a winning spirit at West Ham, where the jokes and jibes have been flowing between Soucek, Coufal and England's Declan Rice since the draw for the group stage was made.

There have been plenty of reminders of the time the two nations last met, when the Czech Republic inflicted England's first qualifying defeat in a decade. Both Soucek and Coufal played that night in 2019, while Secka was in the stands wearing his lucky scarf.

"I will go with this scarf again to Wembley tonight to bring some luck," he says.

West Ham's Czech mates leave little to luck, they let their work rate do the talking. Rice knows facing the two relentless runners and driven winners will be no laughing matter after all the training ground talk. If their performances alongside him in claret and blue are anything to go by, the Three Lions have their work cut out tonight.

Their mentality, having come from serial champions Slavia Prague, has been key to West Ham's transformation under David Moyes.

Both Coufal and Soucek can often be found doing extra work on their days off, while the latter trained alone on Hackney Marshes during the first lockdown, helping him to break club records for distance covered during games. Against Manchester United in the FA Cup, Soucek covered more than 17km over 120 minutes at Old Trafford, a stat that left some of the squad speechless.

Their tireless work ethic has stunned both staff and supporters at West Ham, but it’s not just on the pitch where they represent their country.

Secka has hailed the players for their charity work - including Soucek buying his own shirt in a raffle after the original bidder failed to stump up - while both attended a memorial service to Czechoslovakian soldiers who died fighting in the Second World War as guests of the ambassador.

"They are representing our country ... also in the connection between sport and society," says Secka.

"They see society with an open-minded view, they bring attention to Czech and British traditions, something they people don't often do."

Secka has been in touch with his compatriots during the tournament and has already watched from the stands at Hampden Park this summer. Both players and their families have previously been to Secka’s residence and the ambassador is hoping their next dinner will be a celebratory one.

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