As a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, what is now the Czech Republic was exposed to the sport of football around the same time that it was picking up in Western Europe – in the late 19th Century.
As the nation of Czechoslovakia, the top competition of the land was the Czechoslovak First League, which ran from 1925 to 1992. As a result, the history of football in Czechia features many prominent Slovakian teams.
That said, by the time of the dissolution of Czechoslovakia at the end of 1992, it was the biggest football clubs in the Czech Republic that boasted the most titles.
Now, the two teams that combined for 34 Czechoslovak First League titles remain ahead of the rest in the history of the Czech First League, only now, there is another club making a serious case to usurp one of the Prague teams.
Biggest Clubs In Czech Football:
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Sparta Prague
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Slavia Prague
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Viktoria Plzeň
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Slovan Liberec
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Baník Ostrava
Unsurprisingly, the central power of football in the Czech Republic remains in the capital. Prague is home to the two biggest football clubs in Czechia, with Sparta Prague being a fair bit ahead of Slavia Prague in terms of silverware.
Behind the two Prague teams are the only others to win the Czech First League. Baník Ostrava and Slovan Liberec have beat the clubs of the capital to the top in the past, but it’s Viktoria Plzeň’s continued success that’ll have them worried.
All of the teams that rank among the biggest football clubs in the Czech Republic here boast at least one league win since its inception in 1993 and outrank the rest in regards to their modern successes and popularity.
5) Baník Ostrava
Founded in 1922 as Slezská Ostrava, it only took the team 15 years to surge from the basement as a particularly poorly-funded team to the top flight of domestic football.
Ostrava remained in the first division for a few years before getting relegated, but it didn’t take long for them to return. This would be somewhat of a trend over the next couple of decades, until the 1970s came along.
In 1967, Baník Ostrava returned to the top tier and haven’t gone down since. From 1973 to 1981, they won the Czechoslovak Cup three times and the Czechoslovak First League three times.
Since the forming of the Czech First League, Baník Ostrava have added one more title, taking the league crown in 2003/04.
4) Slovan Liberec
The modern form of Slovan Liberec was forged in 1958, with it being a wholly Czech team that embodied the Czech character of the region it represents, but this didn’t help the team to find much success in its earliest days.
Having sunk as low as the third tier of Czechoslovakian football, Slovan Liberec would attempt to climb back into the top division throughout the 70s, but relegation became rather familiar for the club.
In 1993, however, an opportunity arose for the second-tier club. In the formation of the Czech First League and the Slovakian teams forming their own national division, the best of the league below were brought up.
Since then, Slovan Liberec have remained a top-tier side and, even more impressively, remain the fourth-most successful team in the Czech First League, having won the title in 2002, 2006, and 2012.
Along with three league titles in the club’s trophy cabinet, Slovan Liberec can also boast about the two Czech Cups won in 2000 and 2015.
3) Viktoria Plzeň
Viktoria Plzeň are one of the oldest active football clubs in the Czech Republic, and yet, it took until their centenary to find glory in the first division.
The path to glory is said to originate from the club becoming a joint-stock company and subsequently seeing all of its ownership being bought up in 1995, bringing the economic stability needed to push on.
Ever since 2005, Viktoria Plzeň has been competing in the Czech First League, and in 2011, the 1911-founded team finally landed its first title. That wasn’t all, though.
In the coming years, Viktoria and Slovan Liberec helped to keep out the Prague clubs for sustained spells, with Plzeň claiming the crown in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018, and again in 2022.
Looking to add yet another title to this glorious run since 2011, the team stands second in the table and in consideration for a challenge for the top spot in the football betting markets.
2) Slavia Prague
Despite more often being on the losing side of the incredibly heated rivalry in the Czech capital, Slavia Prague have done enough to challenge their eternal foes and rank as the second biggest football club in the Czech Republic.
Dating back to 1982, Slavia Prague is the oldest of the two clubs and were immediately a dominant force in the Czechoslovak First League when it commenced in the 1920s.
Slavia and Sparta traded the vast majority of the league wins through to the end of the 1940s, but in the 50s and 60s, poor results and relegations plagued the Slavia.
It’d take until 1996 – the third edition of the Czech First League – for Slavia Prague to remerge as national champions and, in doing so, stop Sparta Prague from winning each of the first three titles in the new league.
Since then, Slavia have won the Czech First League six more times, including a run of three on the bounce from 2019 to 2021 and the Czech Cup seven times.
Now, even if Viktoria Plzeň won the title twice more before Slavia Prague nab another, it’s unlikely that the upstart club will usurp Slavia as the second biggest football club in the Czech Republic due to their rivalry with Sparta.
The club’s prominence domestically has granted them entry to the European stage often, with Slavia toting a record of 91 wins, 62 draws, and 88 losses in all competitions at the time of writing.
1) Sparta Prague
Once the home of legendary goalkeeper Petr Čech, Sparta Prague is, by quite some margin, the biggest club in the Czech Republic, and have more than enough trophies to attest to such a sentiment.
In the days of the Czechoslovak First League, the club from what is now the Czechia capital amassed 21 league titles, with the next closest being Slavia Prague on 13. Since 1993, they’ve added another 14 Czech titles.
With twice as many championships as the next-best, including the two most recent titles, it’s not a surprise that Sparta Prague are so highly regarded in the Czech Republic and in the Champions League outrights of the online betting markets.
The dominant team from Prague has already collected more than 300 appearances in European competitions, including over 150 in the European Cup and UEFA Champions League, but this is yet to translate into a European trophy.
By quite some margin, Sparta Prague is the biggest team in the Czech Republic, while Slavia Prague and an upstart Viktoria Plzeň might just be primed to jostle for second place over the coming years.
*Credit for the photos in this article belongs to Adobe*
