Pavel Nedvěd

Pavel Nedvěd (born August 30, 1972 in Cheb, Czech Republic) is a Czech professional football player. Nedvěd is a midfielder for Italian club and for the Czech Republic national team. Before joining Juventus, Nedvěd played for Czech clubs Dukla Prague (1991-92), Sparta Prague (1992-96), and Lazio (1996-2001) in Italy. He has won one Italian scudetto championship with Lazio and four with Juventus.

Nedvěd is a dedicated, hard-working player. One of Nedved's main strengths is that he can play equally well with both feet. This is evident in his shooting capabilities from a distance, as he has unleashed shots of well over 25 meters with both feet. He is said to be considering setting up his own football academy in his home country when he retires from football.

He was named by Pelé as one of the top 125 greatest living footballers in March 2004.

Biography

Nedvěd got his international breakthrough when he was part of the Czech national team which went to the final of , where they lost to Germany. Nedvěd's performance did not go unnoticed and he transferred from Sparta Prague to Lazio in the Serie A in 1996. At Lazio, Nedvěd won the Coppa Italia in 1997/98 and the last international Cup Winners' Cup tournament in 1999 against Real Mallorca, where he scored the last ever goal of the tournament.

Nedvěd eventually moved to Juventus in 2001 for a fee of 41.2 million euros, as a replacement for Zinedine Zidane who had transferred to Spain's Real Madrid the same summer. He proved more than an adequate replacement for the Frenchman, his tremendous workrate and guile playing an integral part in Juventus' scudetto-winning teams of 2001/02, 2002/03, 2004/05 and 2005/06.

Nedvěd helped lead Juventus into the 2003 Champions League final against AC Milan, but he was forced to sit out the final because of accumulated yellow cards, after being booked in the semifinal for tackling Real Madrid midfielder Steve McManaman. At the end of the year, he won the European Footballer of the Year award.

By the time of his first retirement from international football, Nedvěd was captain of the Czech national team. In the semi-final against Greece, Nedvěd was injured when he slammed his knee into a Greek player while jumping for the ball. Though he continued on the pitch for a while, he was eventually replaced by Vladimír Šmicer. Some observers of the match considered Nedvěd's injury to be a key factor in the Czechs' defeat. The injury also led him to retire from the national team in September 2004. Nedvěd had scored 18 goals in 73 games for the Czechs and played for his country at , , and .

He came out of international retirement to play for the Czechs in their 2006 World Cup qualifying playoff against Norway in November 2005. The Czechs won both matches 1-0, first in Oslo and then in Prague, to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the first appearance for the Czech team since the partition of Czechoslovakia. Nedvěd chose to remain eligible for national selection, and was named to the Czech World Cup squad. Despite an impressive start against the USA, the Czechs failed to qualify against Italy and Ghana.

His favourite song is "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Honours

Czechoslovakian Championship: 1992/1993
Czech Republic Championships: 1993/1994 - 1994/1995
Czech Republic Cup: 1996
Italian Cup: 1997/1998 - 1999/2000
Italian Super Cups: 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003
Italian Championships: 1999/2000, 2001/2002, 2002/2003, 2004/2005, 2005/2006
European Cup Winner's Cup: 1998/1999
UEFA Super Cup: 1999

External links

Juventus profile
Career profile and stats at FootballDatabase

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Biography

Honours

External links