The A squad had its representatives in the national team of Slovakia, such as Patrik Hrošovský and Matúš Kozáčik. However, Viktoria’s junior players made their mark in the Czech youth national teams.

Slovakia played two Euro qualifying matches. At first, they beat Hungary 2-0 in Trnava, then they faced Wales and lost by the lowest possible margin 0-1. Nevertheless, Patrik Hrošovský and Matúš Kozáčik did not participate in any of the games. 

Czech U21 had two Viktorians at a camp in Spain. Dominik Janošek played 79 minutes in a 1-1 tie with Iceland, then Pavel Bucha joined the team until 75 minutes during the 4-0 win over Mexico U20.

U20 played two matches. Firstly, they beat Italy 1-0 and in this match Lukáš Pfeifer jumped in the game in the 64th minute. Viktorian on loan in Táborsko played in the starting line-up against Netherlands in the following match in České Budějovice and played until 73rd minute. Václav Svoboda also played the whole second half under coaching of Jiří Žilák in the match that Czech team lost 0-2.

Viktoria Plzeň had their biggest trace in U19 cathegory, which in the qualifying rounds won going on to European Championship! In England they met the home team (loss 1-4), Denmark (win 3-1) and Greece (win 3-1). In all these matches Viktorians even scored goals. Jakub Selnar netted against England, Pavel Šulc scored twice against Denmark and Pavel Hezoučký shot a winning goal against Greece. There were also Václav Míka and Tomáš Kepl participating in the matches.

“The euphoria of going further was amazing. When we scored against Greece to 3-1 and the referee blew the end, the bench run out and started to celebrate. I was crying with joy. I couldn’t believe this was the reality,“ Pavel Šulc, who excelled mainly against Denmark, did not hide his excitement. “I was lucky when scoring both goals because both were rebounded by a defender. But need to say our team stepped towards the luck and I simply stood twice at the right place and just netted it,“ he added humbly after the national team meeting, which was very hard. “Not because of the matches or trainings but mainly because a man doesn’t have enough time to sleep. But we made it and it’s the most important thing.“

U18 played the Sportschain Cup in United Arab Emirates and totally ruled there! They beat Belgium 5-0, England 1-0 and Japan 2-1. Both Viktorians Šimon Gabriel and Karel Žilák played together 140 minutes and participated in all three matches.

“We had fantastic conditions in Dubai. I’m so happy we’re such a good group of friends. And thanks to this and the fact we all look forward to national team’s meetings our performance is satisfying. Moreover, our coach always knows how to motivate us and prepare tactics. The whole team believes him and we do our best to fullfil his tasks, which is seen on the pitch later,“ Šimon Gabriel said. “We got interesting opponents that rank among the world’s top teams. After the first successful match we started to thing we might succeed in the whole tournament. We made it because we let everything on the pitch and finally won the whole cup,“ the skipper of Viktoria’s U19 added.

U17 also goes on to European Championship! In the elite phase of qualifying rounds they played three matches in Netherlands. They beat Israel 1-0, then Northern Ireland 2-0 and finally they lost to the home team 2-5. Josef Koželuh played all the matches in the starting line-up and except the last one he always played the whole match. Martin Šimek jumped in the game against the Northern Ireland and played the whole match against Netherlands.

“My first emotions are unbelievable, it was our big goal,“ Josef Koželuh did not hide his euphoria. “Our team is of high quality and we have ambitions to fight for the World Cup in Brasil. The euphoria was huge, none of us has ever experienced this feeling in our career so far,“ he admitted. He also remembered the progresses of all three matches: “With Israel we weren’t safe for all 90 minutes in order to keep our leading. Against the Northern Ireland we were lucky in the first half when our goalkeeper caught a penalty kick. There is not much to say about the third match against Netherlands, nobody expected a loss 2-5. But we finally made it and that counts.“