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Walking wounded

Injuries threaten to derail national team's Euro 2008 bid

By František Bouc
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
April 16th, 2008 issue

ISIFA
Key injuries to Czech soccer stars Petr Čech and Tomáš Rosický could hurt the country's chances at Euro 2008.
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Things are going from bad to worse for the national soccer team.
With only a month and a half remaining prior to the kickoff of Euro 2008, the Czech team is falling apart. Several vital players are struggling with serious injuries or growing rusty as they linger on the benches of their clubs.
Most shocking was the injury sustained by goalie Petr Čech, April 6. The star goalie, who plays for Chelsea in the English Premier League, caught a boot to the face from teammate Tal Ben-Haim during practice, causing a severe facial injury.
“Basically, we were both trying to stop the goal,” Čech said. “He wanted to kick the ball away and I dove for it at the same time. We hit each other and he tore my face. It was a coincidence.”
Reports released after the injury said that doctors had to use 50 stitches in a two-hour surgery to fix the gash, seriously jeopardizing Čech’s appearance in Euro 2008 — a threat he has since downplayed.
The injury came just as Čech had hoped to return to first-team action with Chelsea, after recovering from an ankle injury he suffered in early March. Čech, who wears a head guard in games after he fractured his skull in a collision last season, said that this latest head injury had not brought back any traumatic memories. It has been a tough season, though, he said.
“This season has been awful in regards to injuries — I get rid of one, another comes,” Čech said. This latest injury scared the national team’s head coach, Karel Brückner, Čech added.
“He called me perhaps 10 times after learning about my injury, asking what was going on,” he said. “He calmed down after I reassured him that I should be fit for Euro 2008.”
After being assuaged by Čech, Brückner had a new injury scare the next day, when Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said that the season might be over for the Czech team’s playmaker and captain, Tomáš Rosický, who has struggled with a knee injury and not played since January.
“We have to consider that, unfortunately, it is a possibility at the moment [that he’ll miss the rest of the season], but it’s not a certainty,” Wenger said. “It has been nine weeks now with no significant evolution in his injury.”
If Rosický is ruled out for Euro 2008, the call for veteran midfielder Pavel Nedvěd to return from international retirement will likely intensify.
Limited playing time
To make things worse for Brückner and company, some other prominent national team players are struggling with either injuries or themselves.
AC Milan defender Marek Jankulovski returned to the pitch in February after a lengthy knee injury, but he has stopped playing again, saying he rushed his return.
Meanwhile, strikers Jan Koller and Milan Baroš and defender David Rozehnal are struggling for playing opportunities. Koller and Baroš are not in the starting lineups of their clubs, Nuremberg and Portsmouth, respectively. And Rozehnal hasn’t played a single game after transferring from Newcastle to Lazio Rome this winter.
Still, Brückner remains upbeat.
“It’s true that many of our key players are struggling,” the coach said. “But it’s a common thing in soccer and we have to get over it.”

František Bouc can be reached at fbouc@praguepost.com


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