The residents of Plzen are proud of many things, one of them being Petr Cech. The current Arsenal goalkeeper – and best in the world in 2005 – was born on May 20, 1982, in the city where Santiago Solari’s Real Madrid play on Wednesday, when Czechs and Slovaks lived inside the same borders.
He was one of triplets, alongside sister Sarka and Mikal, another sibling whose life was ended prematurely, dying just days after birth. The now-goalkeeper, meanwhile, was left with a weaker skull than is normal following his birth.
As a youngster, Cech played ice hockey and football and what was common across both was his ability to score goals, not to stop them as he does now. At 10 years of age, though, he suffered a major fracture to his right leg that changed his life and the club decided he would become a goalkeeper to protect his leg as much as possible.
In doing so, they created one of the 21st century’s best goalkeepers. At Viktoria PlzenCech never made it to the elite and his debut came on October 30, 1999, for Chmel Blsany against Sparta Prague, falling to a 3-1 defeat. From there he went to Sparta, Rennes, Chelsea and now Arsenal, with another 123 appearances for his country. Cech’s career has also featured a moment that made the football world tremble.
On October 14, 2006, Cech was involved in a collision with Reading’s Stephen Hunt and he was knocked unconscious, taking a blow to his weakened skull and needing to go to the operating room. Thankfully, everything went well in his October 16 operation in Oxford and the Czech returned to goalkeeping. Another hero of Czech football, Pavel Nedved, also came through the ranks at Viktoria Plzen, arriving at the club in 1986, before moving to Dukla in 1990.
