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Shameful

under fire for hooker scandal and shabby play, the national team is falling from the world's soccer elite

By František Bouc
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
April 4th, 2007 issue

Last summer, the entire country was caught up in soccer fever ahead of the Czech national team’s first World Cup game in 16 years.

A disappointing early exit in Germany cooled fans’ enthusiasm, and it was almost a year before their team was involved in another top-level clash.
A March 24 win in the eagerly awaited Euro 2008 qualifier against Germany, the World Cup bronze-
medal winner, would have had fans partying in the streets, but it was not to be. An impoverished perfomance led to a 2–1 defeat.
Still, fans reasoned, an expected victory over lowly Cyprus March 28 in Liberec would push the Czech team forward to qualifying for the finals in Austria and Switzerland.
The national team squeaked by Cyprus 1–0.
But, instead of a soccer party at the stadium, it was another orgy that got the spotlight — and confirmed the deteriorating image of the national team.
Booze, broads …
In what was officially billed as a celebration of defender Tomáš Ujfaluši’s 29th birthday, some team members staged a late-night party after the game against Germany that continued into early morning hours.
The players gathered at Hotel Praha, home of the team during their game in Prague. The party featured no shortage of alcohol, but it was something else that sparked scandal.
Team captain Tomáš Rosický and four other players, including Ujfaluši, Jan Polák, Martin Jiránek and Marek Čech, were photographed by reporters of the tabloid newspaper Šíp with a group of half a dozen women believed to be prostitutes.
The undercover reporter and photographer, pretending to be fans requesting players’ autographs, witnessed the women enter the room in two groups of three around 4 a.m.
Šíp reporter Kateřina Šmídová knocked on the door, but Polák did not let her in. Instead, Šmídová reported, the players remained behind closed doors, heatedly discussing whether to take her in or not, while commenting on her figure.
Šmídová, who also reported seeing Ujfaluši pay a 41,000 Kč ($1,950) bill at the reception desk, insisted the six women were prostitutes driven to the hotel by an escort service.
After Šíp printed the story the following morning, the players came up with implausible excuses. Rosický stuck to the story of Ujfaluši’s birthday but also said the players were discussing the mistakes they made in the game against Germany.
“It’s normal that we talk through mistakes after bad defeats,” Rosický said.
Despite the photographs, the players insisted they did not spend the night with any women.
“There were no women, and there was not even much alcohol,” Rosický said.
The Czech Football Association, unconvinced, responded by slapping a 1 million Kč fine on the team for breaching disciplinary rules.
“The players’ behavior violated the code set on the national team,” spokesman Lukáš Tuček said.
To help move on from the embarrassing episode, goalie Petr Čech, perhaps the most respected team member, made a statement that all players had joined in Ujfaluši’s birthday celebration and therefore they should pay the fine as a team.
On the losing side
Under public pressure, the Czech team sweated through its game against Cyprus to a narrow victory. The win saved the chances of qualifying for Euro 2008, but did not build any confidence in the national team.
Head coach Karel Brückner, who became a national hero after guiding the team to bronze medals at Euro 2004, admitted he was considering handing in his resignation as a result of the scandal. But, in the end, the 67-year-old coach put all of the partygoers into the game against Cyprus.
“I was told that all of them took part in the party,” Brückner explained, “and I couldn’t send the whole team home.”
Observers and soccer analysts argue that the scandal, and Brückner’s inability to dismiss players, indicate the deteriorating state of the team.
“Normally, players caught drinking and spending the night with women would be dismissed from the team,” said Milan Luhový, who himself played on the Czechoslovak national team in the early 1990s. “The fact that Brückner did not dare take this step shows that he would probably not be able to fill the vacancies.”
Since the World Cup, key midfielders Pavel Nedvěd and Karel Poborský have retired from the team.
“Those two players added respect to the team, and they could decide games,” said Pavel Hapal, a national team player in the mid-1990s.
Others say the team has been declining on the international circuit since losing to Greece in Euro 2004, pointing out that, despite the advancement to the World Cup, the team loses too often in games against top opponents.
“Czech soccer has been falling to the level where it belongs —
somewhere slightly above the European average,” Luhový said.

František Bouc can be reached at fbouc@praguepost.com


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