Czech soccer star Pavel Nedvěd once again demonstrated his ability to surprise.

Nedvěd — captain of the national team at the 2006 World Cup in Germany and an icon of Czech soccer throughout the past decade — retired from the team hours before a seemingly irrelevant friendly game against Serbia in Uherské Hradiště, south Moravia, Aug. 16.

"I've made my final decision to quit," the 34-year-old midfielder told reporters. "That's it."

But the question remains whether this recent surprise was indeed his last; Nedvěd already reneged on a previous retirement announcement two years ago.

Although he had repeatedly voiced his intent to quit the national team, his abrupt announcement surprised his teammates.

"After I said it, many of my teammates stared at me in disbelief," Nedvěd admitted.

Goalkeeper Jaromír Blažek confirmed that Nedvěd stunned the team.

"We tried to convince him to stay, but he did not leave any back door open this time," Blažek said.

Nedvěd — who plays in Italy with Juventus Turin — said it was not only his age, but also the demotion of Juventus to Italy's second division that caused his retirement from international play.

Juventus was disqualified from Italy's top division this summer due to its involvement in a major corruption scandal. While many star players left the club, Nedvěd decided to stay.

"It would be very difficult for me to get ready for tough international soccer while in the second division," Nedvěd said. "Games in the top division were the best possible preparation for the national team. Now, I'm not sure whether I'd be able to keep in top shape, and I did not want to leave the national team as a disgrace."

His departure signals the end of an era.

Nedvěd captained the national team for the past four years and was a leader of the "golden generation" that brought a silver medal from the 1996 UEFA European Football Championship and a bronze from Euro 2004 and gave the team its first World Cup appearance in 16 years.

In 2003, he became the second Czech player in history to win the Golden Ball Trophy for best player in Europe.

Controversial side

Despite his success, Nedvěd has been perceived as a controversial figure.

"He became more Italian than Czech," said former national team striker Ladislav Vízek, a star in the 1980s.

In Italy, Nedvěd earned recognition for his professional approach to the game and loyalty to his club — whether it was Lazio Rome in the mid-1990s or Juventus Turin.

But he showed a different face at home. Several years before the Czech Republic's European Union accession, Nedvěd told Italian journalists he was considering acquiring Austrian citizenship in order to get around the requirement that limits the number of non-EU foreigners on any EU team to three.

After the media questioned Nedvěd about the issue, he refused to speak to Czech journalists for some time.

Nedvěd stirred controversy in 2000 for arriving late to the national team's training camp, claiming he had forgotten his passport.

In another one of his trademark scenes, Nedvěd shockingly pulled out of the national team after captaining it to a third-place finish in the Euro 2004 in Portugal. Nedvěd suffered a serious knee injury in Portugal and insisted that he wanted to be fit for Juventus games.

After repeated public criticism by head coach Karel Brückner, Nedvěd said in fall 2004 that he would never again play for the national team, despite a threat of sanctions by UEFA, European soccer's governing body.

Nedvěd missed every World Cup qualifying match that year. After the team advanced to the playoff round, Nedvěd made a surprising statement on Italian television that he would like to play in the playoffs against Norway.

The Czech team did not hesitate to capitalize on his willingness to return to the team.

Being well aware of Nedvěd's frequent changes of mood, the national team's business manager, Vlastimil Koštál, appealed to reporters to refrain from asking Nedvěd questions about his past statements and his withdrawal from the national team.

When announcing his retirement in mid-August, Nedvěd insisted it was a cool-headed decision.