The pair clash in the second Group A game at the 2026 World Cup in Atlanta on Thursday, both needing a win after they succumbed to losses in their opening fixtures to Mexico and South Korea, respectively.
They will each also see this as an excellent chance to get their campaigns back on track, but both also looked vulnerable in their first games.
Their only other meeting was at the 1997 Confederations Cup, a tournament that led to the sacking of Clive Barker despite the fact that he had led the side to the World Cup the following year.
South Africa were captained by the late Sizwe Motaung despite the presence of Neil Tovey, Shoes Moshoeu and Doctor Khumalo in the side.
The Czechs led twice but, on both occasions, Bafana came back to equalise, with their second coming from current assistant coach Helman Mkhalele.
Vladimír Šmicer, then at Lens but later to sign for Liverpool, gave the Czechs the lead, but Brendan Augustine equalised for South Africa with a header. He would infamously be sent home from the World Cup six months later after an alleged night out.
But just a minute after that goal, Šmicer netted again for his second to give the European side a halftime lead.
That was the way it stayed until five minutes from the end, when Mkhalele popped up with another equaliser with a belting strike from 25-yards that flew into the top corner. That came after Jiří Němec was sent off for the Czechs three minutes earlier.
Bafana would go on to lose to the United Arab Emirates 1-0 and to Uruguay 4-3, results that cost Barker his job as SAFA panicked ahead of their World Cup debut.
They instead appointed Philippe Troussier, which proved a disaster from start to finish.
South Africa’s only other connection with Czech football is a tenuous one as referee Radek Prihoda presided over a 1-0 friendly loss to Poland in 2012.
The teams:
Czech Republic: Pavel Srníček; Michal Horňák, Zdeněk Svoboda, Karel Rada, Petr Vlček; Pavel Nedvěd, Jiří Němec, Radek Bejbl, Edvard Lasota; Pavel Kuka (Radek Slončík 89’), Vladimír Šmicer (Karel Poborský 84’). Coach: Dušan Uhrin.
South Africa: Andre Arendse, Sizwe Motaung, Willem Jackson, Mark Fish, Neil Tovey, John Moshoeu, Helman Mkhalele, Doctor Khumalo (Dumisa Ngobe 37’), John Moeti, Phil Masinga, Brendan Augustine (Mark Williams 73’). Coach: Clive Barker.