Czech team to be short of five players in Sunday’s Nations League game against Israel

The Czech national football team will be missing five players from its originally selected line-up for Sunday’s away game against Israel in the UEFA Nations League tournament. Team captain Bořek Dočkal, striker Adam Hložek, midfielder Antonín Barák, defender Filip Novák and goalkeeper Filip Nguyen will all be missing either due to testing positive for the coronavirus, inconclusive test results or for capacity reasons.

This means coach Jaroslav Šilhavý currently has 18 of the original 23 selected players ready to take part in the game. A B-team, selected from Czech league players, is ready in case of further complications ahead of Wednesday’s match against Scotland in Hampden Park, the Czech Football Association has said.

The names of the three footballers who tested positive for the coronavirus have not been released officially. However, it seems that one of them is midfielder Antonín Barák, because his league team Hellas Verona has announced he has COVID-19.