Fat Footballers: Pavel Horváth

Today, inside our column about footballers that aren’t in a very good shape, but that aren’t bad at all, we fly to Czech Republic to speak about Pavel Horváth.
This footballer is a very good mildfielder, an old style playmaker, that sometimes plays in a more offensive position, and owns two very good feet, probably, maybe after Tomáš Rosický, among the best in his Country, and an awesome technic, that makes him a great assistman, who can score several goals and is able to play almost without running. Moreover he’s almost 39 years old, and, obviously, otherwise he wouldn’t be in this column, his body doesn’t look like very athletic: according to the official website of his club, his weight is 81 kg and he’s 1.87 meters tall, and this would be a perfect physic, but we don’t believe them ! Infact they probably wrongly inverted two numbers in his height, because others sources, such as uefa.com, report that he’s 1,78 m tall and his weight is 81 kg: who said that abdominals are needed to play football ?

Pavel was born in 1975 in Prague, that is a quite common fact in his Country, because almost 1 Czech on 5 is born in the Capital, and he grew up at AC Sparta Praha, one of the strongest clubs in the city and in the whole Country, with whom he made his first appearance in the First Team in 1993 (when who’s writing this article had just started the Primary School), but later was sold to a smaller team, FK Jablonec, with whom he had two good seasons (51 matches and 8 goals), that earned him a call from SK Slavia Praha, another “giant” of local football, AC Sparta Praha’s biggest rival.

In the Capital, the subject of this post had four very good seasons (27 goals in 105 matches), so that he became a Czech International and was noticed abroad: from 2000 to 2002 he played for Sporting CP and Galatasaray AS, but neither in Portugal nor in Turkey he managed to play regularly. During the Summer of 2002, when he was 27, he came back to his home Country, signing for FK Teplice, with whom he had played regularly for two season (6 goals in 60 matches), but after this spell, during the Summer of 2004, he decided to move to Japan, where he played for Vissel Kobe in J. League until 2006 (12 goals in 60 appearances), when, being maybe homesick, was signed back by his first club, AC Sparta Praha, with whom he had played for two seasons (6 goals in 44 matches).

In 2008 he left the most titled team in Czech Republic and moved to a, theoretically, smaller one, FC Viktoria Plzen, to keep on playing regularly: being 33, one could think that his carrer was in the declining phase and was coming to an end; instead its brightest and most successful part has yet to come !
Infact the manager Pavel Vrba has considered him the key element of his project and has formed a very good team, that, playing a quite entertaining football, has reached the top of Czech football in five years, has the highest attendance in the Country, and has made a very good impression at international level as well.
Pavel Horváth is the brain of the team, an IRREPLACEABLE starter, the team Captain and a fans’ favourite, so that, during the celebrations for the club centenary, he was voted as the Greatest Player of all time. With FC Viktoria Plzen red and blue jersey, he has played so far two UEFA Champions League Group Stages, and a UEFA Europa League Group Stage, and, moreover, he has played the Knockout Phase of the second one three times. Few days ago he has extended his contract until June 2015, that means he’ll play football until he is 40 years-old !

During his long career Pavel has won so far: 6 Czech Cup, with 4 different teams (2 for Slavia, 2 for Sparta, 1 for Teplice and 1 for Viktoria Plzen), 3 Czech Championship a.k.a. Gambrinus Liga (2 for Viktoria Plzen and 1 for Sparta), 1 Czech Supercup for Viktoria Plzen and also 1 Portuguese Championship and 1 Portuguese Cup, obviously for Sporting CP.

Finally we tell you that in 2007, while he was playing for AC Sparta Praha, he was fined for supposedly performing a nazi salute during a Championship match, and he apologized claiming that he had not been understood, because he had just wanted to calm down his rowdies, that sometimes have been on the newspapers because of racist and violent accidents. Moreover it looks like that he enjoys a lot the awesome Czech beer, and it couldn’t be otherwise, especially in Plzeň, as you can see by several pictures and video on internet, in which, often to celebrate a victory, he drinks the popular drink, sometimes because of commercial reasons (guess what Gambrinus, the sponsor of Czech Champioship, produces…) and that could be the cause of his not very shaped body !

Relating to his love for beer , THIS IS THE FOOTBALL WE LIKE !

In this video you can have a sample of his football skills and of his folkloristic celebrations !