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The Czech Republic’s footballers are taking on Italy in a key World Cup qualifier in Prague on Friday evening. The Czech team are at near full strength, though they will be without English Championship star Matěj Vydra, who is injured. Michal Bílek’s charges have had a mixed campaign so far and lie in third place in Group B after picking up only eight points from a possible 15. Leaders Italy, who are group favourites, have only dropped two points in the same number of games.

Most rivers that had swollen and flooded many parts of Bohemia in the past week are slowly beginning to recede. This week’s floods claimed eight lives and forced some 19,000 people to leave their homes. Some 31 thousand people around the country lost access to drinking water in their places of residence in the past four days, and many are still without power.

The Labe River reached its peak flow levels in the north Bohemian towns of Děčín and Ústí nad Labem on Wednesday night and began to slow down in the early hours of the morning. Areas surrounding the riverfront in both towns have been flooded since Wednesday morning, as water made it over floodwalls. In Ústí nad Labem, more than 3,000 people had to leave their homes, and in Děčín over 1,000 due to the inundation. The authorities expect the Labe to return to normal levels within the next week.

The A and the B lines of the Prague metro are in full operation as of Thursday morning, although trains are still not stopping at seven stations that are in the immediate vicinity of the Vltava river. The C line will reopen on Friday, though some stations on that line will remain closed as well. All underground lines had been partly closed since Monday, as a precaution against floodingthat could have resulted from the rise in the water levels of the Vltava River earlier in the week.

President Miloš Zeman has met with the ambassador of Azerbaijan on Thursday in an attempt to improve relations, which were threatened by recent remarks made by the Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg. President Zeman felt that Mr Schwarzenberg’s remarks that Azerbaijan is a “family dictatorship” could negatively affect business interests of Czech companies in the Central Asian country. He met with the Azeri ambassador to discuss steps to ease tensions and improve relations between the two countries.