Articles
Czech soccer star Vladimír Šmicer looks back on a successful career
Interview by Ian Willoughby
The Czech soccer player Vladimír Šmicer has enjoyed a very successful career, winning league titles in the Czech Republic and France, and a number of trophies with one of the world’s biggest clubs, Liverpool. The attacking midfielder, who is now 36, was also part of the Czech team that surprised many by reaching the final of the 1996 European Championship. I met Vladimír Šmicer at the stadium of Slavia Prague, the club where his career began in the early 1990s.
“I was born in a small village called Verneřice, about 80 kilometres from Prague. We were living there with my family until I was 14, and then we moved to Prague.”
Was football always the first choice sport for you, or did you have to choose between different sports?
“No, football was always my first choice. I don’t know why, when I was young I was constantly kicking a ball. Of course I liked playing tennis or other sports, but football always had first place in my head.”
You joined Slavia Prague, I believe, when you were about 14. There are a lot of players who when they’re young look promising but never become professional players – at what point did you think, this is it, I can do this, and I’ve kind of made it?
“Yes, it’s always difficult to say at what moment you’ve arrived at the point where you think you can make it. But I think it was around the time when I was 18, 19, something like that, because I was playing regularly for Slavia’s reserve team. I wasn’t bad, I could score goals, I could make goals. Before it was different – when I was 14, 15, I played for Slavia’s junior teams, but sometimes I played, sometimes I didn’t…so it was still very open.”
At 20 you started playing for the Czech national team. In the end you won over 80 international caps, you scored 27 goals, including some important ones. What was your first game for the Czechs? Who was it against? What do you remember of that match?
“That was pretty soon after I started playing for Slavia. My first game was against Cyprus and it was in Košice, because at that time we were still the Czechoslovak team. It was a special game. Of course I remember a lot of things: we won 3:0, there were a lot of great Slovak players still there then, I played for about 70 minutes. I didn’t score a goal, but it was a great moment for me.”
1996 was a big year for you.
“Yes, a very big year, because Slavia won the title, we went to the semi-final of the UEFA Cup, which was a great achievement for a Czech club. And of course we played at Euro 96 in England. It went pretty well for us, we were the surprise of the tournament, and we played the final.”
About the time of Euro 96, you got married, but your wedding turned into a bit of a circus…it took place on Old Town Square in Prague.
“That’s a great memory. The wedding was only two days before the final. Before the semi-final I asked the coach if I can go [to Prague for the wedding] if we go through and he said, yeah, if you go through to the final you can do anything you want! We qualified for the final against France, after penalties. We hadn’t expected that we’d go all the way to the final, and that’s why we had this date for the wedding. In the end it was great, a lot of people were there…Of course I couldn’t enjoy it really as after the wedding I had to go back to England.”
Now how do you look at Euro 96? You got to the final, that was a great success, but you were beaten by the Germans.
“Of course before the tournament if anybody had told me that we could reach the final I would never have believed it. But after 70 minutes we were leading 1:0 and I thought we could hold that lead until the end. But then Bierhof scored two goals, one in normal time and one in extra time – that was the Golden Goal, unfortunately for us, because we had no chance to react. We lost but I think we really played beyond our abilities at that tournament. We were the underdogs and we made a big surprise.”
After the tournament you moved to the French club Lens. Why the French league, and how did things go for you there?
“It was a French team, because I thought I needed to take another step in my career. I had already played in the Czech league for five years and I had this offer from Lens, because we played against them in the UEFA Cup and they liked how I played. They offered me a contract after those games, because I was at the end of my contract here at Slavia. So I said, why not? Of course maybe if I had signed a contract after Euro 96 I could have played for a better team. But in the end I was very happy, because things went well. It’s a small club with a lot of fans. In the end we won the title for the first time in their history, so I was really very happy that I signed with this club.”
In 1999 you joined one of the biggest clubs in the world, Liverpool. You also wore the number seven jersey that had previously been worn by the club’s biggest legend, Kenny Dalglish. Were you nervous joining Liverpool?
“I don’t want to say nervous, but I had a lot of respect for the club of course, and when I was a small boy I really had a dream of playing for them one day. Sometimes it looks strange when you arrive at a club and say, oh, it’s my dream come true, but really it was my favourite team. So I had a lot of expectations about what I could expect from the team, from the fans. With the number seven jersey, of course it was a lot of pressure on me. My first year was not that good, because I arrived with injuries – I had a lot of injuries through my career at Liverpool, which I was unhappy about – but I was really, really happy to join Liverpool. My friend Patrik Berger was already playing for Liverpool, and it was really something fantastic.”
Tell us about your friendship with him, what kind of relationship have you got?
“When Patrik was young, he played for Sparta, Slavia’s big rival. Then he signed for Slavia and we started playing together at the age of 19. We had an apartment together in Prague, and from that point we started to be really good friends. Then he moved to Dortmund, I moved to Lens, and in the end we joined one another at Liverpool – it was something unbelievable, we couldn’t believe it was happening.”
And you and he had great success in the year 2001, when Liverpool won the UEFA Cup, the FA Cup, the League Cup…
“It was definitely our best season there, because we were playing together and the club won five trophies [the other two were the Charity Shield and the UEFA Super Cup], which was maybe a first in England. We were very happy to be part of this team.”
In his final appearance for the club, Vladimír Šmicer scored for Liverpool as they came from 3:0 down to beat AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final, one of the most dramatic football matches of all time. The Czech player had started what became the game of his career as a substitute, but was sent on after half an hour when a team-mate got injured. Looking back over four years later, Šmicer remembers his reaction when Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez told him to get ready.
“I was very happy because Benitez knew I was leaving Anfield and I was surprised he picked me to go on. I knew it was my last game for Liverpool and I said to myself, now you have to do your best, because it was the final, we were already losing 1:0, and of course I wanted to win the trophy...”
Many people regard that as the greatest game of football that has ever been played. Liverpool were losing 3:0 at half time. In the second half they came back and it was 3:3 and it ended up going to penalties. You scored a goal and a penalty…do you remember the goal?
“Yes, of course I do because it was one of the most memorable goals of my career. Didi Hamann gave me a pass and I tried to hit the ball as quick as I could because I didn’t have much time. It went through, I think, Milan Baroš and then [Milan goalkeeper] Dida was short, fortunately [laughs]”.
When it came to penalties, did you volunteer, or did Benitez tell you to take one?
“No, he came to me and asked me if I’d like to take one and I said, yes, I’d like to take a penalty, because I felt fine in the game. I was 32, I thought, OK, this is going to be my maturity, I have to show what I have learned in six years at Liverpool. I didn’t want to leave the responsibility for somebody else. I was glad to say that, because sometimes you don’t feel right, but in that moment I felt, OK, I will score.”
Since then have you watched the game or the highlights many times?
“Yes, I’ve showed it to my son. I’ve got a son, he’s six now and sometimes I show him the game, though he’s still too young…The game is really often on TV, because it was a great game for the fans, the reaction was fantastic, the emotions…But at home, not very often, you know it’s already been four years.”
After the game you could see you and Milan Baroš celebrating together on TV. I think he was shouting “máme to” – we have it. What were you shouting?
“I was shouting the same thing, we have it, Číčo, because Číčo is the nickname of Patrik Berger. We spoke to him on the phone before the game and he said, if you win then you have to say something on TV, so we said it.”
And that was your last game for Liverpool. How do you look back now on your six years at the club?
“I’m very proud that I played for really one of the biggest clubs in the world. And the six years…I know I could have done better, because very often I had injuries, which stopped me from showing my best in a consistent way…but in the end, as I said, I am proud. I won a lot of trophies. The only disappointment was that we didn’t win the league, which I think is now the most important thing for Liverpool fans. Hopefully it will arrive soon.”
You spent one year in France [with Bordeaux] and then came back here to Slavia – what had changed in Czech football in those years that you were away?
“I think our league is a little bit younger. A lot of quality players are playing abroad. Our league is not bad, but we lack a little bit the quality of the best players. Before when I was playing nearly all the big players were still playing in the Czech league. Now it’s really changed – any good young player moves abroad, to play for an English club, a Spanish club, a German club. So I think we’re lacking these good young players a bit.”
The last couple of years have seen some problems with discipline with the Czech international team, with drinking and girls and that kind of thing…do you think the current generation is different from your generation, which was Poborský, Nedvěd and so on?
“Before we went to have a beer as well, you know, but I think, yes, the new generation with all the stuff, the computers, internet, Facebook and all this stuff, it’s definitely a change and they are different…”
Have things maybe come too easy for those younger players?
“Of course, everything is much easier than it was for us. Even for us it was more difficult to move abroad. Now really you can have a few good games and then you go.”
I have a theory that Czech footballers are the greatest ambassadors for the Czech Republic. For example Petr Čech or Pavel Nedvěd are better known than any Czech politicians. Do you think there’s some truth in that?
“Yes, definitely, definitely. Because these players you mentioned are really famous and very, very good professionals. I am happy that they show that we are here, that the Czech Republic is on the map. It’s the same a bit with the ice hockey players in the NHL in America, and because of them some people know where the Czech Republic is.”
You’re 36 now yourself, you’ve had several operations over the years including an knee operation earlier this year…I was reading somewhere that your plan now is to get fit and to come back just so you can say goodbye to football on the field of play.
“Yes, that’s definitely the only reason I’m in training now. I’m trying to go on the pitch for the last time, because, I don’t know, it’s quite sad for me to imagine saying from the hospital or from my home, OK, I’m finishing my career. I’d like to do that on the pitch.”
After you do that on the pitch, what’s next for Vladimír Šmicer?
“I’ve got a few possibilities. I’ve got a good offer from Slavia to stay here and work for the club. Or I may go and work for the Czech football federation, because the head of it, Ivan Hašek, offered me a good opportunity to work with the national team as manager – not as a coach, of course it’s different in England, but behind the scenes.”
More from Radio Prague
© 1996–2019 Český rozhlas
The Czech soccer player Vladimír Šmicer has enjoyed a very successful career, winning league titles in the Czech Republic and France, and a number of trophies with one of the world’s biggest clubs, Liverpool. The attacking midfielder, who is now 36, was also part of the Czech team that surprised many by reaching the final of the 1996 European Championship. I met Vladimír Šmicer at the stadium of Slavia Prague, the club where his career began in the early 1990s.
“I was born in a small village called Verneřice, about 80 kilometres from Prague. We were living there with my family until I was 14, and then we moved to Prague.”
Was football always the first choice sport for you, or did you have to choose between different sports?
“No, football was always my first choice. I don’t know why, when I was young I was constantly kicking a ball. Of course I liked playing tennis or other sports, but football always had first place in my head.”
You joined Slavia Prague, I believe, when you were about 14. There are a lot of players who when they’re young look promising but never become professional players – at what point did you think, this is it, I can do this, and I’ve kind of made it?
“Yes, it’s always difficult to say at what moment you’ve arrived at the point where you think you can make it. But I think it was around the time when I was 18, 19, something like that, because I was playing regularly for Slavia’s reserve team. I wasn’t bad, I could score goals, I could make goals. Before it was different – when I was 14, 15, I played for Slavia’s junior teams, but sometimes I played, sometimes I didn’t…so it was still very open.”
At 20 you started playing for the Czech national team. In the end you won over 80 international caps, you scored 27 goals, including some important ones. What was your first game for the Czechs? Who was it against? What do you remember of that match?
“That was pretty soon after I started playing for Slavia. My first game was against Cyprus and it was in Košice, because at that time we were still the Czechoslovak team. It was a special game. Of course I remember a lot of things: we won 3:0, there were a lot of great Slovak players still there then, I played for about 70 minutes. I didn’t score a goal, but it was a great moment for me.”
1996 was a big year for you.
“Yes, a very big year, because Slavia won the title, we went to the semi-final of the UEFA Cup, which was a great achievement for a Czech club. And of course we played at Euro 96 in England. It went pretty well for us, we were the surprise of the tournament, and we played the final.”
About the time of Euro 96, you got married, but your wedding turned into a bit of a circus…it took place on Old Town Square in Prague.
“That’s a great memory. The wedding was only two days before the final. Before the semi-final I asked the coach if I can go [to Prague for the wedding] if we go through and he said, yeah, if you go through to the final you can do anything you want! We qualified for the final against France, after penalties. We hadn’t expected that we’d go all the way to the final, and that’s why we had this date for the wedding. In the end it was great, a lot of people were there…Of course I couldn’t enjoy it really as after the wedding I had to go back to England.”
Now how do you look at Euro 96? You got to the final, that was a great success, but you were beaten by the Germans.
“Of course before the tournament if anybody had told me that we could reach the final I would never have believed it. But after 70 minutes we were leading 1:0 and I thought we could hold that lead until the end. But then Bierhof scored two goals, one in normal time and one in extra time – that was the Golden Goal, unfortunately for us, because we had no chance to react. We lost but I think we really played beyond our abilities at that tournament. We were the underdogs and we made a big surprise.”
After the tournament you moved to the French club Lens. Why the French league, and how did things go for you there?
“It was a French team, because I thought I needed to take another step in my career. I had already played in the Czech league for five years and I had this offer from Lens, because we played against them in the UEFA Cup and they liked how I played. They offered me a contract after those games, because I was at the end of my contract here at Slavia. So I said, why not? Of course maybe if I had signed a contract after Euro 96 I could have played for a better team. But in the end I was very happy, because things went well. It’s a small club with a lot of fans. In the end we won the title for the first time in their history, so I was really very happy that I signed with this club.”
In 1999 you joined one of the biggest clubs in the world, Liverpool. You also wore the number seven jersey that had previously been worn by the club’s biggest legend, Kenny Dalglish. Were you nervous joining Liverpool?
“I don’t want to say nervous, but I had a lot of respect for the club of course, and when I was a small boy I really had a dream of playing for them one day. Sometimes it looks strange when you arrive at a club and say, oh, it’s my dream come true, but really it was my favourite team. So I had a lot of expectations about what I could expect from the team, from the fans. With the number seven jersey, of course it was a lot of pressure on me. My first year was not that good, because I arrived with injuries – I had a lot of injuries through my career at Liverpool, which I was unhappy about – but I was really, really happy to join Liverpool. My friend Patrik Berger was already playing for Liverpool, and it was really something fantastic.”
Tell us about your friendship with him, what kind of relationship have you got?
“When Patrik was young, he played for Sparta, Slavia’s big rival. Then he signed for Slavia and we started playing together at the age of 19. We had an apartment together in Prague, and from that point we started to be really good friends. Then he moved to Dortmund, I moved to Lens, and in the end we joined one another at Liverpool – it was something unbelievable, we couldn’t believe it was happening.”
And you and he had great success in the year 2001, when Liverpool won the UEFA Cup, the FA Cup, the League Cup…
“It was definitely our best season there, because we were playing together and the club won five trophies [the other two were the Charity Shield and the UEFA Super Cup], which was maybe a first in England. We were very happy to be part of this team.”
In his final appearance for the club, Vladimír Šmicer scored for Liverpool as they came from 3:0 down to beat AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final, one of the most dramatic football matches of all time. The Czech player had started what became the game of his career as a substitute, but was sent on after half an hour when a team-mate got injured. Looking back over four years later, Šmicer remembers his reaction when Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez told him to get ready.
“I was very happy because Benitez knew I was leaving Anfield and I was surprised he picked me to go on. I knew it was my last game for Liverpool and I said to myself, now you have to do your best, because it was the final, we were already losing 1:0, and of course I wanted to win the trophy...”
Many people regard that as the greatest game of football that has ever been played. Liverpool were losing 3:0 at half time. In the second half they came back and it was 3:3 and it ended up going to penalties. You scored a goal and a penalty…do you remember the goal?
“Yes, of course I do because it was one of the most memorable goals of my career. Didi Hamann gave me a pass and I tried to hit the ball as quick as I could because I didn’t have much time. It went through, I think, Milan Baroš and then [Milan goalkeeper] Dida was short, fortunately [laughs]”.
When it came to penalties, did you volunteer, or did Benitez tell you to take one?
“No, he came to me and asked me if I’d like to take one and I said, yes, I’d like to take a penalty, because I felt fine in the game. I was 32, I thought, OK, this is going to be my maturity, I have to show what I have learned in six years at Liverpool. I didn’t want to leave the responsibility for somebody else. I was glad to say that, because sometimes you don’t feel right, but in that moment I felt, OK, I will score.”
Since then have you watched the game or the highlights many times?
“Yes, I’ve showed it to my son. I’ve got a son, he’s six now and sometimes I show him the game, though he’s still too young…The game is really often on TV, because it was a great game for the fans, the reaction was fantastic, the emotions…But at home, not very often, you know it’s already been four years.”
After the game you could see you and Milan Baroš celebrating together on TV. I think he was shouting “máme to” – we have it. What were you shouting?
“I was shouting the same thing, we have it, Číčo, because Číčo is the nickname of Patrik Berger. We spoke to him on the phone before the game and he said, if you win then you have to say something on TV, so we said it.”
And that was your last game for Liverpool. How do you look back now on your six years at the club?
“I’m very proud that I played for really one of the biggest clubs in the world. And the six years…I know I could have done better, because very often I had injuries, which stopped me from showing my best in a consistent way…but in the end, as I said, I am proud. I won a lot of trophies. The only disappointment was that we didn’t win the league, which I think is now the most important thing for Liverpool fans. Hopefully it will arrive soon.”
You spent one year in France [with Bordeaux] and then came back here to Slavia – what had changed in Czech football in those years that you were away?
“I think our league is a little bit younger. A lot of quality players are playing abroad. Our league is not bad, but we lack a little bit the quality of the best players. Before when I was playing nearly all the big players were still playing in the Czech league. Now it’s really changed – any good young player moves abroad, to play for an English club, a Spanish club, a German club. So I think we’re lacking these good young players a bit.”
The last couple of years have seen some problems with discipline with the Czech international team, with drinking and girls and that kind of thing…do you think the current generation is different from your generation, which was Poborský, Nedvěd and so on?
“Before we went to have a beer as well, you know, but I think, yes, the new generation with all the stuff, the computers, internet, Facebook and all this stuff, it’s definitely a change and they are different…”
Have things maybe come too easy for those younger players?
“Of course, everything is much easier than it was for us. Even for us it was more difficult to move abroad. Now really you can have a few good games and then you go.”
I have a theory that Czech footballers are the greatest ambassadors for the Czech Republic. For example Petr Čech or Pavel Nedvěd are better known than any Czech politicians. Do you think there’s some truth in that?
“Yes, definitely, definitely. Because these players you mentioned are really famous and very, very good professionals. I am happy that they show that we are here, that the Czech Republic is on the map. It’s the same a bit with the ice hockey players in the NHL in America, and because of them some people know where the Czech Republic is.”
You’re 36 now yourself, you’ve had several operations over the years including an knee operation earlier this year…I was reading somewhere that your plan now is to get fit and to come back just so you can say goodbye to football on the field of play.
“Yes, that’s definitely the only reason I’m in training now. I’m trying to go on the pitch for the last time, because, I don’t know, it’s quite sad for me to imagine saying from the hospital or from my home, OK, I’m finishing my career. I’d like to do that on the pitch.”
After you do that on the pitch, what’s next for Vladimír Šmicer?
“I’ve got a few possibilities. I’ve got a good offer from Slavia to stay here and work for the club. Or I may go and work for the Czech football federation, because the head of it, Ivan Hašek, offered me a good opportunity to work with the national team as manager – not as a coach, of course it’s different in England, but behind the scenes.”
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© 1996–2019 Český rozhlas
