Nemec achieves new milestone

By Ladislav Josef

Jirí Nemec has always been one to let his feet do the talking. However, it was the former Czech Republic captain's achievements which spoke volumes on Sunday, when he made the 500th appearance of a long career in Czech and German football in the First Division match between FK Chmel Blšany and FK Jablonec 97.

'The Mute' 
"I knew it was going to happen some time this year, but I stopped looking at statistics a while back," Nemec said. The game itself did not go to script, with Blšany losing 2-1. But then the 36-year-old midfield player had never been interested in the hackneyed story. Indeed, it was a refusal to deal with the press that had marked him out and earned him the nickname 'The Mute'.

Bad reviews 
Even during his time as national team captain, Nemec would refuse interview requests. Apparently, he had collected newspaper cuttings as a teenager with SK Ceské Budéjovice but gave up after a year because "there were a lot of bad things written about me". "I do not want my son reading that I was a bad player," he once said.

Goalscoring debut 
It was with Ceské Budéjovice that Nemec made the first of his 500 first-class appearances, with a goal on his debut in the Czechoslovakian First Division. The fact he has found the target only 18 times since, shows that goalscoring is not exactly within the Nemec compass, although he did register with a memorable volley in a friendly against the Korean Republic in 1998.

International class 
The term that better defines him is 'midfield workhorse', and his excellence in that role won him the award for Czech footballer of the year in 1997 as well as 84 international caps. Nemec was a member of the Czechoslovakia squad that reached the FIFA World Cup quarter-finals at Italia 90. He then captained the Czech Republic to the final of the 1996 UEFA European Championship in England, and received his runners-up medal from Queen Elizabeth II after defeat by Germany at Wembley stadium.

Success with Schalke
Victory might have eluded the unfancied Czech team, but Nemec was on the winning side a year later when he lifted the UEFA Cup with German club FC Schalke 04 after a penalty shoot-out triumph over Internazionale FC of Italy. Nemec had joined the 1. Bundesliga team from AC Sparta Praha in 1993 following a spell with FK Dukla Praha. He became a permanent fixture at the AufSchalke Arena - helping Schalke win the German Cup in 2001 and 2002 - and Schalke manager Rudi Assauer said: "Whenever Jirí could not play, there was something special missing from our game."

Czech return 
So he left a huge gap to fill when he finally returned home last summer, joining unfasionable Blšany. The choice of club - and the decision to swap Schalke's 62,000-capacity stadium for crowds of a couple of hundred in a small village in Northern Bohemia - surprised many. But it was one motivated more by personal reasons than financial ones. Blšany coach Günter Bittengel is an "old friend and former team-mate" and, Nemec said, "he was a major factor in my decision".

A quiet life 
There have been rumours of a move back to Sparta but Nemec said: "I have a deal at Blsany until the end of season with the option of a one-year extension. We'll see what happens." He added: "I would like to stay in football but I am sure that I never will be a coach. Their destiny is sometimes too cruel from my point of view." A quiet life beckons, then, for the quiet man of Czech football.