Elegance. That’s what Pavel Nedved brought to the football field above all else. That’s not to say he didn’t have the grit, quite the contrary. He was one of the hardest-working, toughest-tackling players on any pitch too. But there was something simply majestic about watching him driving forward with the ball at his feet.
He had those quick, short steps, the two-footedness that made him a danger from any position on the field, and the hair. Oh, he had the hair.
The Czech star, who turns 50 on Tuesday, was both heralded and yet underrated as a player. At Lazio he shared the stage with the likes of Marcelo Salas, Sinisa Mihajlovic, Alessandro Nesta, Diego Simeone, Simone Inzaghi and Juan Sebastian Veron. It meant that even when he was one of the key driving forces behind their second-ever Serie A title in 2000, he wasn’t given the appreciation across the board that he deserved.
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When he was signed up by Juventus in a €41 million move in 2001, he was the most direct replacement for Zinedine Zidane after the Frenchman made a world-record €76m switch to Real Madrid. But even then, the other big-money arrivals of Gianluigi Buffon, Lilian Thuram and former Lazio team-mate Salas ensured that the spotlight would be shared, and the likes of David Trezeguet and Alessandro Del Piero remained among the Juve stars most heralded away from the terraces at the Stadio delle Alpi.
It was in 2002-03 that Nedved caught the eye most notably. Playing in the number 10 role rather than on the left, he turned in a string of virtuoso performances to lead the Bianconeri to a second straight Scudetto and came oh, so close to repeating the trick in Europe. With Juve trailing 2-1 from the first leg in the Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid, first-half goals from Trezeguet and Del Piero swung the tie in the favour. But when the Blancos won a penalty midway through the second period it appeared the game was up.
Buffon saved Luis Figo’s spot-kick, and moments later Nedved killed the tie. Racing onto Gianluca Zambrotta’s brilliant through-ball, he caught Iker Casillas flat-footed, firing a bouncing ball beyond the dive of the Madrid goalkeeper. It was typical of his quick thinking, of his ability to execute in the big moments, of his brilliance at that moment in time.
He wouldn’t get the happy ending that season though, with a booking late in that second half ruling him out of the final against AC Milan. Juve’s loss on penalties at Old Trafford immediately led to people wondering whether they’d have got the job done with Nedved in the side.
Nedved did win the Ballon d’Or in 2003, the closest he ever came to ample recognition of his quality, but by 2006 he was a Serie B player. Juve’s demotion following the Calciopoli scandal had led many of their bigger names to defect, but the Czech Republic international was among a handful who stuck around to ride the storm and became an instant legend among the fan base as a result. By the time he retired in 2009, his position among the list of Juve greats had long been assured.
These days he’s a director on the Juventus board, and to football fans of a certain vintage he remains one of the most watchable YouTube subjects there is. That grace on the ball, tenacity off it, and willingness to work for the team on and off the field, made him one of the greats of a celebrated era of Italian football. With that blonde hair flowing behind him, he was poetry in motion.
