Czech Republic: 10 Years After – Content Writer’s Perspective

You can also listen to the interview in the audio version.

Adéla’s daughter and Damian’s son took up football, while he rather backed off. Petr Čech catches in the hockey goal, improves as a drummer, rides a bicycle for recreation and prepares the Glow21 project full-time, in which he tries to support and inspire future leaders not only in business during his lectures. In addition, he received an MBA degree at the university, he wrote a diploma thesis on the topic of digital innovation in sports.

You’re still living crazy fast. Do you remember what it was like to become the Premier League record holder ten years ago?

I’ll be honest: when I left Chelsea after eleven years, I wanted to stay in the Premier League. The best competition in the world, the greatest pressure, football priority for a person with maximum motivation. The move to Arsenal made sense to me because I felt I could win the title again. And maybe also the Champions League. Just a challenge. Then I heard: Look, you can make a record. At first it surprised me: What record?

Within the zeros picked up. Your competitor David James had 169.

In retrospect, I don’t even know how much I have left.

And is that not enough? Or too much? I was really focused on staying in the Premier League and my club playing as high as possible. I was interested in the record only from the moment it began to be discussed publicly. When will it be? How long will it take him? Will he even make it?

You did it on 28th December 2015 at home against Bournemouth.

And then you say to yourself: Great, great job, now you have to continue as far as possible.

Not even. You still want to perform at your best, win matches, win titles, be successful and beneficial. So you pat yourself on the back and see that the two hundred is close. Why not try it?

In the end, the number was 202. Have you been able to enjoy success already during your career?

That was hardly possible because time flew. You win the title and you rush to the national team, where no one cares about the pompous parade we had in London. Again, you have to look ahead. The European Championship ends, you take ten days off and you roll forward again. You don’t have time to sit down and calmly think about what went well and what could be improved. You will not enjoy anything during your career.

You feel good after a win, the next day too, but then you have to switch gears and think about how to prepare for the next match. You don’t have to catch when you make a mistake. When you’re not at your best, someone else plays. No one defends you because they have no reason to. With hindsight, I consider it the dark side of professional sports. Only now can we calmly talk about what happened ten years ago. Or about a record. I admit that I feel satisfied. For what I sacrificed for football.

A record number of 202 is going to be pretty hard to beat, isn’t it?

I don’t see who can attack it yet. To be honest, it warms my heart to see my name next to that number. When the 170th zero came, it was fine, but the next day I had to go back to work and struggle. With the number 202 I reached the finish line. Only in retrospect does one realize what was hidden behind it.

Even if you are often full of things, you have to keep going, not slacking off, getting complacent. Even if the pressure is the greatest, you must not succumb to it. Five years is manageable, but what about ten? Fifteen? Twenty? Suddenly it’s over and you know that the situations you succeeded in wouldn’t have happened without the situations in which you needed to learn and improve. That’s the only way you grow. Knowing what I know today, I would put much more emphasis on regeneration and try harder to snort, because you can’t ride for twenty years without a break.

My ankles and achilles would best answer that. If I didn’t drive at full throttle all the time and was able to hit, I could have fished for another three or four years. Well, until forty. I had experience, mental strength, insight and still speed, agility and reaction. But the body said: Enough! I couldn’t do three solid workouts in a row without my achilles or ankles popping up. Not to mention how I look today when I put on my football boots and go in goal. Goalkeeper movement, you don’t really realize it, is hugely demanding on changes of direction. My achilles are on fire and the next day I’m down like a penguin. Fortunately, I can normally run, play padel, hockey, ride a bike. I’m currently trying to take care of my body so that it doesn’t slap me right away. I’ll see what it looks like in ten years.

Going back to the record game against Bournemouth. In retrospect, do you not regret playing for Arsenal and not for Chelsea, where the fans loved you?

Sorry? Not at all. Maybe I wouldn’t have achieved the record if Chelsea hadn’t let me go. In the end, I didn’t really care in which jersey it was done. I’m rather sorry that I didn’t help Arsenal to the title. For me, team achievements were on a completely different level than personal ones. Records not records. There is nothing more beautiful and important than a team.

You made history with Chelsea.

Yes, but after the eleventh season, when I had already won everything with the club, I felt that it needed a refresher, a new challenge. And why not Arsenal, which built a new stadium and rebuilt the entire club. He invested in the infrastructure, played mostly with young people, yet the title was not far away. It drove me forward, to further work with new people. No, I don’t regret the move, I’m just sad that we didn’t reach any finals with Arsenal.

What about the 2015/16 season, your first at Arsenal?

I still wonder why Leicester got away from us. What did we do wrong and what did they do better? We lost twice in a row at the turn of February and March, then drew with Tottenham in the derby, and in the meantime Leicester bounced back. We haven’t caught up with them yet. At the same time, we had a foothold, the fans would deserve it and for me personally it would be a sensational thing. Unfortunately.

What did the picked-up zero actually mean to you? Clean account?

The biggest prerequisite to lift the cup over your head at the end of the season, because it is the first step to winning the game. A clean sheet guarantees that you only need one goal to get three points.

Such a pragmatic answer?

For me, every zero was valuable, primarily from the team’s point of view. With one exception, which I experienced more personally.

Lionel Messi and his Barcelona. Those were special games for me and Messi, the best of the best, couldn’t beat me for ten games, over 900 minutes. Until I joined Arsenal. In one season we were the only team of all that didn’t get a goal from Barcelona. That’s why I repeat: the ideal way to win is to play zero.

Just look at your first season at Chelsea, right? It started in the fall of 2004.

And at the end we had twenty-five clean sheets.

A total of fifteen goals conceded in thirty-eight matches.

We were disgusting in how honest we defended. We understood that there is absolutely no need to perform in attack. You win ten games 1-0 and you see that the others usually lose because they concede more often than us. In a long-term competition, this is a huge advantage.

Is there a difference in the approach of goalkeepers and forwards?

It depends if they perceive the principle in the same way. I saw zero as the best way to win and to appreciate my own work. Chelsea quickly realized that the path was the right one. What’s the point of matches that you draw 2:2 or 3:3 after a great performance, if you lose two points in them and you can’t even praise yourself for the accomplished task?

Did you have bonuses for picking up zeros in your contract with Chelsea?

Certainly not in the first one, I didn’t even think of that. Then it was easy to take into account. On the one hand, it’s easy to say that some matches were easy for me, but mind you, I was almost never completely idle. It’s misleading, because in a big club you don’t get a single shot for thirty minutes, you look, you play with your feet, you have to watch out for a few crosses. But once a big team makes a mistake, it’s usually a dead end.

Were you insulted by diggers for collecting zeros for free?

Not again. You just have to perceive that a person who has never stood at the gate cannot know what the principle is. A normal fan perceives the number of saves and shots caught, we ourselves know how important it is to catch one or two shots per match in the favorite’s goal. Remember Ben Foster? He played for Manchester United, but admitted in retrospect that he was not ready for such a big club. He was a goalkeeper for smaller clubs, in which he was far more often on a permanent basis. The trick is to keep your concentration even in long passages when the ball is far from you. In addition, I was in a team where every player valued a clean account and was willing to work for him. This is now a big weapon for Arsenal, who despite the huge competition in the Premier League, can close their goal.

By the way, the goalkeeper not only has to make excellent catches, but at the same time flawlessly play with his feet under pressure. Isn’t he a victim of modern football?

I kind of agree. Defenders often become alibis who – as soon as they sense a problem – pass straight back to the goalkeeper. Why would they come up with a constructive passing game? Why would they try a loop that might not work? At Chelsea, we changed it according to the opponent. Against Blackburn or Bolton, we knew it was going to be a physical soapbox with a lot of long drives. We had to adapt to that and were mentally prepared for it. But be careful, we also knew how to play short, on the ground and adapt to a different style of football. That was our biggest advantage because we were adaptable.

Do you use these experiences in your lectures for businessmen?

Although it doesn’t seem like it, the world of professional football and business are very intertwined. The claims on individuals are similar. But what I’m trying to point out is that there’s not much team power in business because everyone is a separate unit in a way. Whereas a football team can incorporate individual things into a broader, team concept. In addition, your opponent is right in front of you, you can see him straight away, he is not imaginary like in the business world.

The ideal is to squeeze the best out of eleven footballers and still think as one team. That’s what I’m trying to teach, so that business tries to learn from sports. That’s why I got into it. It would be a waste of time for me not to share all my experiences. Why would I keep them to myself when they can help? I’m not claiming to be right about everything, I’m not making assumptions, I’m just showing my point of view. It doesn’t matter if you do football or business. You have to figure out for yourself which path to take in order to be successful. At the end of the day, it’s all about mental attitude.