Legends Of Club Football: Petr Cech

LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 05: Goalkeeper Petr Cech of Chelsea looks on during the UEFA Champions League group E match between Chelsea and FC Nordsjaelland at Stamford Bridge on December 5, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Scott Heavey/Getty Images)

Goalkeepers probably have the worst job in football. Their position demands insanely high levels of focus, awareness, reflexive ability and a zeal for their unduly thankless, unrewarding work. Rigorous practice, painstaking physical training, and countless encounters with the manager’s fury. And yet, if you master the art of annoying the strikers with unmatched stubbornness in not conceding goals – The Promised Land is yours for the taking. In the recent past we have seen that with so many shot-stoppers : Schmeichel, Buffon, Casillas, Oliver Kahn, and so on. If we were to add one name to that elite list from the most recent past, it would take a man of some nerve to utter any other name than ‘Petr Cech’.

Petr Cech moved to London in the summer of 2004 and started his career at Chelsea as Carlo Cudicini’s understudy. At first, fate took a bit of a fancy to the young Czech goalkeeper (although it was to change its mind and wreak a terrible cataclysm upon him two years later), as Cudicini sustained an elbow injury even before the season could commence. And guess who Chelsea and Cech opened their league campaign against? Mighty Manchester United. The scoreline? 1-0. I mean, who keeps a clean sheet against United on their debut? Everybody sensed a star in the making.

In truth though, he was a star in the making from the very beginning. He still holds the record for longest time elapsed without conceding at Sparta Prague (903 minutes) in 2001. This was when he was 19. And in his second season at Chelsea, he set a new Premier League record of 1025 minutes without conceding (which was broken eventually by Edwin Van der Sar). Petr Cech gave off a whole new aura of tight-fistedness. In both senses of the term, as strikers were to discover. His introduction at Stamford Bridge infused a new level of professionalism and efficiency at the club, as Chelsea took the Premier League home for the first time since 1955.

Cech made 34 appearances in the league the following season, in which Chelsea conceded a grand total of 22 goals. That in itself indicated the measure of the man. That Chelsea relied on him was clearly manifest in his first two seasons. Just how heavily they banked on him was going to be revealed shortly, albeit through a dreadful and nearly-tragic twist of events the following season, when Chelsea made that fateful trip to Reading’s Madejski stadium. It was the 14^th of October and, in the very first minute, Cech stepped out to challenge Reading’s Stephen Hunt for the ball. Hunt sloppily kneed Cech in the skull, and it took several minutes for the Big Czech to be stretchered off the pitch. It was only after the surgery that the doctors realized the gravity of the situation. They reported that the skull fracture had nearly cost Cech his life. A million prayers might have had something to do with his fortunate recovery.

Petr Cech was advised to take an elongated break of three months from football to wholly overcome his injuries. He returned in January the following year, but could not stop Manchester United from ending their title drought of three years. Cech was now sporting rugby-style protective headgear. In the same scrum cap, Cech kept a clean sheet against United in the new Wembley stadium, as Chelsea won the FA Cup through an extra time goal from Didier Drogba, and both Drogba and Chelsea began their love affair with the stadium.

Cech, in an interview on Chelsea TV, said that he did not have any memory of his horrific head injury at Reading. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that he hadn’t changed a darn bit after making his return. But unfortunately, his team had. A lot, in fact. Gone were the prosperous days of Mourinho. But fate was never going to let Cech get away with it. If it couldn’t afflict him externally, it conspired to torment his mind. It succeeded in doing so in the summer of 2008.

After taking a rampant United team with its elite squad of snipers to the penalty shootouts in the 2007/08 Champions League final, and saving Cristiano Ronaldo’s ridiculously tame spot kick, Petr Cech thought he had done significantly more than enough to ensure that Chelsea would triumph in Europe’s elite competition for the first time in their history. John Terry and the liberally watered Luzhniki surface had other plans in store. United gleefully capitalized on Terry’s mis-kick and made sure that Sir Matt Busby watched his team lift the trophy he had desired to lift half a century ago.

Being a Red Devil through and through, I have firsthand knowledge of how Cech can get on the opposition’s nerves with his obstinate and resolute ‘keeping. The reason that Chelsea fans still adore Jose Mourinho so much is that although he might have got them those two titles and left after a whirlwind romance and break-up (blame it on Roman) with London, he built them a team that could march on for many more years. Petr Cech was just one of the components of that team, along with Drogba, and both of them were to play vital roles – if not the only roles – in Chelsea’s momentous triumph at Munich.

Petr Cech is needed at Chelsea, now more than ever, with the jokers that now adorn their defensive line. Petr Cech has gradually become the primacy of life at King’s Road. Almost reaching up to the heights of Terry and Lampard.

With Cech, you never get that feeling of completeness. He is undoubtedly one of the best ‘keepers in the world. His name gets on the Top Five without a shadow of a doubt. He may lack the respect and devotion that John Terry commands, and he may fall miles short of the admiration that Frank Lampard generates among the Blues faithful. But if there is one thing about him that cements his place among the legends to have graced Stamford Bridge, then it his grit and his appetite to battle. Even when he knows that his team are fighting for a lost cause, he fires up the boys with his never-say-die attitude. He had a lot of critics to toss into the fireplace last season, and he did that with the eternal grace that characterizes his exploits on the field.

And as every Blues fan would say after an awe-inspiring save from the Czech:Cechmate!

You can read more about other such club legends here.