A window to the past: the Ballon d’Or again without a Czech footprint. Last time Petr Čech scored fourteen years ago

After a year in which a coronavirus pandemic devastated world football, the most prestigious journalistic poll, the Golden Ball of the French magazine France Football (founded in 1956), will once again be held to find the best player in the world and in which the Czech Republic is represented by Ruik.cz. Unfortunately, he cannot send his compatriot his vote, as he is not the only one in the 30-member nomination. The last time goalkeeper Petr Čech made it to the selection was in 2007.

Time flies like crazy, it’s been fourteen years since a Czech representative made it to the editorial selection of the French magazine France Football for the Golden Ball voting.

For 2007, goalkeeper Petr Cech did not escape the spotlight, picking up a total of seven points in the final tally and finishing in 19th place along with Buffon, Gattuso, Henry and Seedorf.

Let’s recall that the Czech international, a bronze medallist at Euro 2004 in Portugal, suffered a serious head injury in autumn 2006, but returned to the pitch in January with a protective helmet and shone: he kept a clean sheet in the Premier League for more than 800 minutes, and in April he won the Player of the Month award for eight consecutive clean sheets.

In May, he kept a clean sheet in the English Cup final against Manchester United (Chelsea won 1-0 after extra time) and celebrated his first win in the world’s oldest club competition. In the Premier League, Chelsea finished second behind the reigning champions Manchester United. That’s a lot of resounding records.

Since then, however, no Czech footballer has earned a Ballon d’Or nomination.

This year, fans could hope after all. Striker Patrik Schick made a big contribution to the Czech team’s progress to the European Championship quarter-finals, making it through a tough group (Scotland, Croatia, England) and knocking out the Netherlands in the eighth round.

Schick scored five goals (out of six), and together with the star Cristiano Ronaldo, he was the top scorer of the tournament; the Portuguese striker only received the trophy based on the accompanying criteria.

In addition, Schick continues to thrive in the German Bundesliga for Bayer Leverkusen, and after seven rounds is third in the cannonball table with six goals, with only Lewandowski and Haaland ahead of him with one more.

Still, he did not make it through to the nomination. In defence of the French journalists, however, it should be noted that Schick is not held in high esteem by some of their Czech colleagues either, they don’t even mention his name when discussing the Ballon d’Or nominees..

The Czech national team has already won the title of the best scorer of the European championship. At the 2004 Euro bronze medal in Portugal, Milan Baroš also scored five goals for his opponents, collecting eleven points and finishing 12th in the poll. Pavel Nedved, the 2003 Ballon d’Or winner, did not defend the trophy but finished seventh with 23 points.

However, Czech football is waiting in vain for more breakthroughs among the best. For 14 years now..

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