Barosh: In Liverpool, Šmicer was asked if this is really the talent. I was overweight and slow

Milan Baroš is definitely one of the biggest Czech football icons, his career is full of successes and goals. But his beginnings at Liverpool, where he signed for the Champions League triumph, were not easy.

Baros’ footballing CV is incredibly rich. Gold and silver medals at the Euro U21, a bronze medal at Euro 2004, where he was the tournament’s top scorer. Winner of the Champions League, the French League and the English FA Cup.

The former striker is also the second top scorer of the national team, having scored 41 goals. He was fourteen shots short of the first Jan Koller.

You must have heard about the memorable Champions League final of 2005. AC Milan were already 3-0 up at half-time against Liverpool, but in the second half the Reds were reborn with Milan Baros and Vladimir Smicer in the squad, equalised within six minutes at 3-3 and eventually won on penalties.

But the engagement in Liverpool, where Baroš finally achieved the greatest success of his career, did not start smoothly at all. He moved to England as a 19-year-old from Baník Ostrava, and because the Czech Republic was not yet in the European Union and he had not yet made 12 national team starts, he had to wait six months for a work permit.

He arrived at Anfield Road with a lot of confidence that he would put in the same performances as he did in Ostrava, but he changed his mind very quickly.

“I arrived in England on 22 December and on the 23rd I had my first training session. I looked at who we were playing at the weekend, Manchester United, so I thought, maybe I’ll jump in for 15 minutes and then I’ll be in the starting line-up. I went there full of confidence, but the reality was completely different. I opened the car door and there was Anelka sitting next to me, who they had signed and I didn’t know it,” Milan Baroš recalled in an interview with Radio Sport.

The same sobering moment for the Vigantic native came when he joined Liverpool’s training process.

“It was difficult in the cabin at the beginning. He told me that they came to him and asked him: ‘this is like your biggest talent from the Czech Republic, right?’. Because I was overweight, I was slow, I didn’t have any training. The first six months were a real struggle, but after the season I started to train on my own without a break and I got into it,” Baroš reflects.

Despite all the pitfalls of his first foreign engagement, Baroš coped with the unpleasant beginning and eventually had a beautiful career. How many Czech footballers can say they were the starting striker in the Champions League final?

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