Pavel Nedved – a Czech legend

Pavel Nedved is one of those players, who unless you watched play during his time, you probably wont be talking about 10 years from now. Whenever analyzing a player’s career as a whole, one of the first things I consider is will young people be talking about him 10 or 20 years from now. Did he leave a permanent impression on the sport? Certainly, this question is quite easy to answer when considering careers such as those of Zidane, Cryuff, or Beckenbauer. But what about Nedved? Compared to the average first division player, his achievments are certainly impressive.

On the international level he was THE player of the Czech Republic of this generation. He helped them to the semi-finals of the European championships on two different occasions (1996 and 2004) and an impressive FIFA ranking, thanks to great qualifcation runs. This last world cup performance though, as great as it started, ended rather dismally. Nonetheless, his achievments and leadership for his country, have proven important over this past decade.

On the club level, he was an impressive young player at his 5 seasons at Lazio. Juventus spotted this, and wisely picked him up. He was supposed to replace Zidane, in some manner, in the Juve midfield. Critics were naturally quite skeptical, but he fullfilled the role in his own way. Obviously its nearly impossible to replace Zidane on a technical level, but Nedved made up for it with his non-stop running and pure intensity. He has always been known as a true workhorse in the midfield: charging forward, leading attacks, scoring goals, but also backtracking to help out with defense. He has played a crucial role in the last half-decade at Juve, leading them to various Serie A titles, as well as ALMOST a Champions League title. It was quite sad to have to see Nedved sit out of the 2003 CL final because of suspension, after having led Juve there. There was some consolation in winning the European Player of the Year award that year (2003), but it would have been sweet for Nedved to have that UCL medal.

So back to the question, will people who did not watch him play (basically the young people, since anybody who has been following the sport with some level of attention over the past decade would have no doubt heard of him and watched him play) 10 or 20 years from now know him or discuss his career? Quite likely…only in the Czech Republic. Around the world, and even among Juve fans, almost definitely not. His achievements and playing skills have been impressive, but not cream of the cream.

Dont get me wrong though, Pavel Nedved is one of my favorite players ever, along with Zidane, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, and Cafu. He has scored some truly memorable goals, making good use of one of his best charecteristics as a player: the ability to shoot extremely well with both feet. While its almost mandatory as a professional to know how to shoot with both feet, when watching even most pros, one can very quickly figure out their preferred foot just from how they setup their shots, which ones they decide to take, etc. Its rare to see such a level of proficeny in both feet where a player doesnt hesitate, depending on the foot. To add to that, Nedved also has quite a powerful shot and is awesome at volleys. Well enough description, here are some videos:

1. This is pretty good Nedved compliation with some very nice goals. Its mostly only him in a Juventus shirt, so it gives an incomplete picture when one is looking at his career as a whole, but still definitely worth checking out.

2. Lots of great clips of him in a Lazio and Czech Republic shirt. Also clips of him playing, as opposed to only goals. A warning though, the music is horrendous.

3. Well done compliation, showing quite a few goals the other two missed out on and some of the same ones from different angles:

Hope you enjoy the videos.

Explore posts in the same categories: Club, International, Nedved, Players, Soccer, World cup 2006, Zidane