Tuchel says beating Czechia in Prague isn’t a must-win yet

England head coach Thomas Tuchel said he is not yet ready to call Tuesday’s Nations League match against Czechia in Prague a “must-win” — despite his side’s shock home defeat to world champions Spain, 2:3.

Defeat to Spain

England failed to hold on to their lead and lost 2:3, despite being ahead during the game. According to Tuchel, Spain were not given an easy win. “There were individual mistakes that shouldn’t happen, but you can never fully guard against them. We had every chance to beat the world champions. When we were ahead, we were fully in control of the game, but we lost our rhythm towards the end,” the coach said of the match.

A “must-win”? Too early to say

The defeat to Spain is already behind them — England have turned their attention to Tuesday’s match in Prague. One English journalist asked Tuchel whether he considered the upcoming game against Czechia a “must-win”. The manager replied that it was far too soon to talk in those terms. “I understand why you’re asking, but it’s too early to say that. We always go into a match to win. We respect our opponents — playing in Prague against Czechia will be a serious test, and the home crowd will clearly be right behind them. It would be great to win, but there’s no talk of it being a must just yet,” Tuchel said.

According to him, the group remains one of the toughest in the Nations League, and Czechia’s new head coach Santi Denia has built the side an organised style of play. “We’re facing a tough match — the new coach plays a very organised game, and there’s real cohesion in his team. We watched their match against Croatia and need to prepare properly,” the coach added.

How Czechia fared against Croatia

In their Nations League match, Czechia lost 1:2 to Croatia. After an unremarkable first half, the Czechs clearly stepped things up in the second — the side fell just short of salvaging even a draw. According to Tuchel, this was the very match England had been analysing, and no separate preparation was needed for the change of coach in the Czech camp.

“We saw plenty of patterns familiar to us from Spain’s game — a flexible midfield, players switching positions, good organisation. The players are open to new ideas, they’re highly motivated, they want to make an impression. They had a goal that would have levelled the score ruled out, even though it was a brilliant effort. That’s exactly what we’ll be up against. The opponent may be underestimated, but we’ll approach the match as professionally as possible,” Tuchel stressed.

England’s defensive problems

A separate topic at the press conference was England’s defence. For a long time it was considered almost flawless, but in the last two matches it has conceded seven goals. The defeat to Spain followed a wild 6:4 win over France in the 2026 World Cup third-place match.

“I understand why you’re asking, but it doesn’t worry us for now, even though conceding that many goals really is unusual for us. I think our defence is well organised, we don’t have to sit in a deep block and we can press. It’s strange that against Spain we took the biggest risks precisely when we had the ball ourselves. That’s something we need to fix,” Tuchel admitted.

Fan festival at Fortuna Aréna

Around the Fortuna Aréna stadium, where the Nations League matches against Croatia (26 September) and England (29 September) will be played, the Football Association of the Czech Republic is organising a fan festival. It will run for four days — from 26 to 29 September — and will include football activities, tournaments, autograph sessions, ticket and prize draws, plus events with partners ČSOB, Fortuna and Ford. Among those presenting their own programme will be elite Czech darts player Karel Sedláček.

Around Prague, based on reporting by sport.cz