Tomáš Souček has already achieved great things in his football career, but he has one big target remaining - to lead Czechia to the 2026 FIFA World Cup finals.
The West Ham United midfielder has won the UEFA Europa Conference League and become a true great at the Club he joined in January 2020, having scored 41 goals in 245 appearances, many of them historic, vital strikes or headers that played a huge role in the Hammers’ recent successes.
The 30-year-old needs just four more goals to overhaul Patrik Berger and become the greatest Czech goalscorer in Premier League history, while his 194 Premier League appearances rank third behind only Petr Čech and Berger among his fellow countrymen.
At international level, Souček ranks ninth in both caps won and goals scored for Czechia, and he has captained his country 42 times - second only to Tomáš Rosický since the country became independent of Slovakia in 1992. He has also been named Czech Footballer of the Year on four occasions.
Souček took over the captaincy of Czechia midway through UEFA Euro 2020, leading his team to the quarter-finals, then did so again at Euro 2024, where they suffered a group-stage exit, before skippering his side to promotion to UEFA Nations League A late last year.
After scoring nine times for West Ham in the 2024/25 Premier League season just completed, Souček has returned to international duty alongside his soon-to-depart Hammers teammate and friend Vladimír Coufal. Together, the duo want to help Czechia to reach their first World Cup finals since 2006, and just the second since independence.
The Czechs have made a perfect start to qualifying, defeating the Faroe Islands and Gibraltar to go top of Group L, but with Montenegro and Croatia next on the fixture list in the coming days, Souček knows things are about to get much harder.
At the same time, victories over Montenegro at home in Plzeň on Friday 6 June and Croatia away in Osijek on Monday 9 June would put Nároďák firmly on course for next summer’s tournament in Canada, Mexico and the United States.
“This is our dream because we have two important games this week,” he told whufc.com. “In our group, obviously Croatia is favourite but we believe we can compare to them.
“It’s our massive dream because we weren’t there in the World Cup for 20 years, and I believe we have the ability and especially me and Vlad are a big part of the Czech squad and I believe we will do a great connection during the internationals, as we did together through our West Ham careers.
“It would be a massive thing, especially because we are not England who are going there every four years. We are Czech Republic who wasn’t there for 20 years so, as a captain, this is my priority and my biggest dream that I want to reach.
“Obviously I have so many dreams for next season with the Club, but for internationals I have been to the Euros twice which was nice, but we always go to the Euros, so as captain I want to get my country to the World Cup.”
