Back in 2002, Petr Cec moved from one of his home country club Sparta Prague to French club Rennes. In 2003 Cech was very important for the club, he was even named the man of the match against Paris Saint-Germain by L’Équipe, which is recognition for a small club like Rennes. Petr had a four-year contract but in January of 2004 Chelsea made a bid for him. The bid was rejected. Chelsea kept insisting and in February Petr Cech signed for Chelsea for £7 million.
This kind of memories don’t just go away so our goalkeeper was going back to one of his first clubs and there is no wonder he had mixed feelings:
On a bittersweet return
“Yeah it was a bittersweet return. The reception I got from the home fans was brilliant and obviously I appreciate it. We came here with the objective of winning the game and putting ourselves in a good position, and we’re leaving with a result that is not good.”
On how it felt to come back
“It’s been a pleasure for me to come back. I have great memories from the two seasons that I spent with Stade Rennais and I was very pleased with the draw when we got them. I have to say a big thank you to everybody for such a good reception, but the game was bitter for me because we wanted to have a positive result, we wanted to win and put ourselves in a good position before the second game. We couldn’t do so because losing 3-1 is not what we wanted.”