Czech Republic Women

There is no single arena the Lionesses call their own. When the Czech Republic play a EuroBasket or World Cup qualifier at home, the fixture moves between the O2 Arena in Prague, seated for basketball at 16,805, the ČPP aréna in Ostrava, and the DRFG Arena in Brno — a rotation built around filling whichever hall the calendar and the opponent make worth filling, rather than settling on one address.

The federation itself is only as old as the team: both were formed in 1993, when Czechoslovakia split and its women's squad divided along the new border. What the young Czech program built in little more than a decade still defines it. In 2005 the Lionesses beat Russia 72–70 in the EuroBasket final, with Hana Machová and Eva Vítečková named to the tournament's first team; two years earlier they had lost to the same opponent in the same round, 56–59. Five years after the title, hosting the FIBA World Cup on home floors, they reached another final and fell to the United States 69–89, Hana Horáková finishing as the tournament's most valuable player. Kateřina Elhotová carried that generation into the WNBA and remains the name attached to it.

The current squad, built around Julie Pospíšilová, Julia Reisingerová and Emma Čechová under captain Tereza Vyoralová, opened EuroBasket Women 2025 — a tournament the Czech Republic is co-hosting with Belgium, Finland and Sweden — by putting 89 points on Montenegro in a 45-point win.

None of that history sits easily alongside Russia, the opponent on both sides of the 2003 and 2005 finals, and a rivalry with no love lost. Serbia has since given the Lionesses harder nights, beating them in the 2019 quarter-finals, while Slovakia carries a different weight — the other half of the old Czechoslovak team, met first in the 2003 group stage and beaten 98–62.