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Keeping them guessing

Rumors swirl that Pavel Nedvěd will return to national team for Euro 2008

By František Bouc
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
December 26th, 2007 issue

KURT VINION/THE PRAGUE POST
Star midfielder Pavel Nedvěd is arousing curiosity over whether he will make a return to the national squad which he quit last year.
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The soccer community has fallen into a guessing game this month that will most likely last until the summer. The game’s hero? Star midfielder Pavel Nedvěd. Its subject? Whether Nedvěd will once again return to the national team.

The 35-year-old midfielder who over the past decade was an icon of the national team and named Europe’s best player in 2003 retired from the team in August 2006 shortly after its dismal performance in the World Cup.
“It’s time to go” he said then.
However a year and a half after his retirement rumors have surfaced about Nedvěd’s possible comeback for the Euro 2008 finals in Austria and Switzerland next summer.
Italian defender Nicola Legrottaglie who plays with Nedvěd on Juventus in the Italian Serie A league kicked off the rumors after telling the soccer Web site Goal.com that Nedvěd was likely to make an appearance at Euro 2008.
“You will see — Nedvěd like me will return to his national team and play in the European Championship next June” Legrottaglie said.
Nedvěd’s lawyer Bronislav Šerák rejected Legrottaglie’s assertion.
“I spoke with Pavel and he told me that the national team was a closed chapter for him” Šerák said.
Nedvěd does not communicate with media based in the Czech Republic. However the national team’s spokesman Lukáš Tuček said Nedvěd repeated to him that he was not considering a comeback.
“Nedvěd said that his teammate made the statement without consulting him” Tuček said.

World Cup precedent
Should a player other than Nedvěd become a subject of such speculation talks about his return to the national team would look pointless. Nedvěd is different however as he has already retired and returned to the national team — a comeback that was also first anticipated by his Juventus teammates.
Soon after guiding the national team to bronze medals at Euro 2004 in Portugal Nedvěd withdrew from the team. The midfielder had seriously injured his knee in the semifinals against eventual champion Greece and he did not fully recover for the start of the Serie A season. The frustrated Nedvěd soon stated that he did not feel healthy enough to carry on playing for the Czech Republic.
Losing the team’s playmaker was hard to accept for head coach Karel Brückner. Fearing sanctions from the European soccer governing body UEFA for refusing to play on the team without any justification Nedvěd called an official end to his career on the national team.
However when the Czech Republic advanced to the World Cup qualification playoffs and stood on the verge of advancing to their first World Cup in 16 years rumors about Nedvěd’s return intensified.
Nedvěd’s then-teammate at Juventus Zlatan Ibrahimovic said in mid-2005 that Nedvěd would in the end appear on the national team in the World Cup. And that autumn Nedvěd indeed changed his mind.
“If I’m nominated to the games I’ll be glad to help my country in the [World Cup] playoffs” he said.
Despite the team’s mediocre performance in Germany Nedvěd was one of its leading players. But then he quit the national team once again after a minor friendly game against Serbia in August 2006.

Playing the odds
When he called an end to his national team career Nedvěd was getting ready to fight with Juventus for promotion to the Serie A which the club had been demoted from by court decision following a corruption case. Nedvěd said that demotion to the second Italian league had influenced his decision not to play on the national team.
“I wouldn’t be able to get ready for tough international soccer in the second league” Nedvěd said.
Juventus advanced back to the Serie A this season and Nedvěd after a slow start has rounded into form in recent weeks showing he is still competitive in top-level soccer games.
Although Nedvěd has rejected a comeback his teammates on Juventus and former teammates on the national team have not ruled out his return for Euro 2008. National team defender Zdeněk Grygera who plays with Nedvěd on Juventus revealed in November that Nedvěd was still interested in the country’s Euro 2008 qualification.
“On the day after the national team secured advancement to next summer’s tournament we talked about it with Pavel during a Juventus training session” Grygera said. He joked with Nedvěd about whether he wanted to join the last qualifier but Nedvěd reportedly did not respond.
Despite his adamant refusals Nedvěd’s controversial past and anticipated return have made him the subject of betting in the Czech Republic. At a Fortuna shop in mid-December the odds that Nedvěd would in the end return to the national team stood at 2.9:1.

František Bouc can be reached at fbouc@praguepost.com


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