"I totally fell in love with all the details of the concept and the people here." That's David Trunda — president of the Czech Football Association, FIFA development committee member, and club owner — talking about Oklahoma City. Not Prague. Not a European capital. Oklahoma City.
Trunda has made two trips to the 405 in a matter of weeks, the second timed specifically for OKC United's public unveiling at Mayor David Holt's State of the City address. The club revealed its name, crest, and colors at the end of the speech. Trunda was in the room. He then detoured through OKC on his way to the World Cup Final in New Jersey. This isn't casual interest.
More than a handshake partnership
OKC United won't kick a ball until 2028, when a new downtown MAPS 4 multi-purpose stadium opens and the club enters USL competition. Owner Christian Kanady and sporting director Sead Karaselimovic — a Bosnian-born exec who came from Sporting Kansas City — have kept most of their blueprint private. But the ambitions clearly run well beyond fielding a first team. Youth development, infrastructure, the full pyramid. That's where Trunda's value is real.
He's not just a well-connected visitor. Trunda is currently rebuilding the Czech Republic's youth system after identifying structural failures in it — and he's offering OKC the chance to skip some of those mistakes entirely. "It's important to not only have the A-team and the new arena, but also the ground base of the pyramid which you are going to build," he said.
That's a pointed observation. Plenty of USL expansion projects arrive with a shiny stadium plan and a vague nod toward community soccer. The clubs that last are the ones that get the grassroots right from the start. Trunda has seen what happens when you don't.
Why this connection matters
Karaselimovic and Trunda met through a mutual friend — a reminder that soccer at this level still runs on relationships. The Czech Republic's national team was based in Dallas during the World Cup, which gave Trunda an easy drive up I-35 to see what was happening in OKC. He liked it enough to come back.
Czech soccer has genuine pedigree to offer. Petr Cech. Pavel Nedved, the 2003 Ballon d'Or winner. A domestic league Trunda knows from the inside, having owned FK Mladá Boleslav in the top division. This isn't a figurehead lending his name to a press release.
For a club that doesn't play its first competitive match for three years, landing this kind of attention from the global soccer establishment is a signal that Kanady and Karaselimovic are operating at a different level than most pre-launch USL projects. Whether the execution matches the vision is the only question that matters — and nobody can answer it yet.
"I came just to support this idea," Trunda said, "and to maybe give a little bit of my energy to the people who stand behind it."
