Vintage Czechs #1: The Mighty Comeback

It might be pretty obvious to start this column with the most famous Czech performance in recent years, but there you go. The game between Netherlands and Czech Republic at the EURO 2004 group stages (!) maybe wasn't one of a great importance - both teams, having won their first encounters against Germany and Latvia, respectively, could still easily qualify in the later stages of the competition. But the game still has to go down as the most magical one for the Czechs since 1994, when the former federal Czechoslovakian team split.

The reason why I am bringing up the game now is primarily because it was named the greatest moment in the Czech sport in the last ten years by Lidové noviny just a week ago. Nevermind the competition of this year's three Olympic gold medals of Martina Sáblíková, ice-hockey world cup winners, the game was top, and most deservedly so. It's still thrilling to read about the match in which not only the "golden generation"* of players like Nedvěd, the then holder of the 2003 Ballon d'Or, Poborský, Šmicer, Koller and so many more, performed so well, but also showed such determination and skill to turn the game around from 2-0 down to 3-2 up AND produced such stunning goals. (*The term "golden generation" hasn't been established yet but it's likely to be introduced as the Czech national team is really not doing so well recently and the prospects for another few years aren't really looking up either).

Vladimír Šmicer celebrating his winning goal

Honestly, it's hard to add much more to what Michael Cox of the ever-brilliant Zonal Marking has already written about his own favourite team of the last decade and the game itself. This really was a team you could be proud of to support. There was passion, will, pace, technical quality, and the tactical mastermind of Karel Brückner in his brighter days. A year with a great Czech side, and the Invincibles on top of that (normally I would go the other way round, but whatever), what more you could ask for?

Tomáš Rosický On His Way Out From Arsenal?

There's been much talk in the Czech press about Tomáš Rosický, the Czech captain and Arsenal's number 7, constantly not being included in the starting eleven of his club, and, therefore, on the way out to Villa or back to Germany where he used to play for Borussia Dortmund until 2006. This might seem fairly reasonable on the first sight - Rosický is in his prime years, captaining his country, where he's by far the best player, and he's hardly performed below par this season when called upon. Yet Rosický now fails to become an integral part of the starting eleven like he used to be in the 2007/08 season. MF Dnes give their own explanation to the reason:

Arshavin, Fabregas, Nasri or Wilshere are selfish on the pitch. They're younger as well, so they're more perspective. Maybe that's why they play more.

Well, as you can see, the first explanation to the rumours regarding Rosický is, sadly, blatantly simple and speaks for itself: most of the Czech sports journalists have never been quite the brightest ones you'll ever see. The same applies to most of the commentators and pundits - the level of writing about football in Czech Republic, at least in the mainstream press, is mostly nowhere near worth talking about. Take an average piece about Premier League - and it's probably worse than reading anything from Stan Collymore. It's dull, amateurish and it's not more intellectually challenging than babbling of a twelve-year-old kid in the comments. It's tiring, really. Almost like this.

While it's true that Rosický hasn't played as much as he might deserve, given his undeniable talent, desire, workrate and experience, there are more reasons for that. Firstly it's down to the fact that he's only been available after his long-term injury and subsequent and inevitable niggles for a couple of months (note: Wenger has always said that it takes a player almost the same length of his previous injury to fully recover). Rosický, having come back after a year and a half at the beginning of the last season, has played 33 games out of possible 53 in 2009/10, so it's almost baffling, due to his injury record, that he hasn't been injured since the start of this season. He's still hardly reliable not to concede an injury though, so I'm suggesting Wenger is not rushing him back too much, granted, as he has plenty of other options to choose from as Arsenal haven't been struck by too many injuries on his position. As it's Arsenal, though, this can change within a week, so I wouldn't worry too much about Rosický not starting in every game at the moment.