Czechia's World Baseball Classic "Big Dream" featured in documentary video

World No. 15 Czechia will participate in the World Baseball Classic for the first time. The accomplishment is narrated in Small Country, Big Dreams, a documentary by Martin Claus, Tomáš Icík and the Czech Baseball Association (CBA).

The documentary, in Czech with English and Spanish subtitles, takes us back to 2021. After Czechia lost to Israel in the quarterfinals of the European Championship, CBA decided to let go of long-term National Team manager Mike Griffin, replacing him with Pavel Chadim.

Prominent Czech sports opinion leaders criticised the move. TV commentator Jakub Starik said: "I thought Mike Griffin might get more time; his work was admirable" while admitting that the choice to name Chadim was "logical" since he had coached the best Czech talent in the youth National Teams.

The new manager accepted the challenge to promote a new generation of players to the National Team, such as WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup start Vojtech Mensik.

Chadim described his baseball idea as "don't let them score". He didn't succeed in the World Baseball Classic Qualifier's opener where Czechia lost to Spain, 21-7 but the documentary takes a look at what happened between that loss and the final game, with Czechia eventually earning an historic qualification.

Czechia is a landlocked county in Central Europe, historically known as Bohemia. It is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast and Slovakia to the southeast. It has a population of 10.51 million people and 7,000 baseball players.

The Czech Baseball National Team will compete in Group B of the fifth World Baseball Classic from 8 to 13 March in Tokyo. They will face World No. 1 Japan, No. 3 Korea, No. 10 Australia and No. 30 China.