I don’t have any criminals among my offspring, says Alois Kolenatý, coach of the 2021 team

Alois Kolenatý, who connected his football and then coaching life with the clubs in Ústí nad Labem, received the award for the coach of the preparatory school for 2021 at the FAČR gala dinner. “The most important thing for me is to raise decent people out of boys,” is his credo.

Have you counted how many boys have passed through your hands?

I don’t. Even an estimate is very difficult. I’ve been coaching for 30 years, five years in adult. Everything else, youth. If I take a squad of about eighteen players, that’s hundreds. That’s a pretty good number.

You’ve managed to produce someone who’s reached the top and had a great football career?

As far as I can remember, not a single one made it to the national team or at least the first league. I have coached youngsters in clubs at a lower level, if I had stayed in Ústí, where I also worked for some time, the chances of successful offspring would have been much higher.

My boys made it to the division. But I remember them fondly. Every now and then I’ll meet someone, say hello, I go to football games a lot and I always run into someone. They report to me.

Your main credo was to raise boys to be decent people first and foremost. Do you have any criminals in your cadre?

Well, no, there isn’t one. I dare say the vast majority of them have grown up to be decent people.

Doesn’t it bother you that you don’t have a better known name in football?

I had my sights set on coaching men at clubs with higher ambitions. I was deciding whether I should get the highest profile. But then I counted the pros and cons and said to myself that I would be happy with a UEFA A certificate and leading the youth. When I was studying, my classmates were famous footballers and later coaches Vítězslav Lavicka, Juraj Šimurka, Tomáš Matějček, Pavel Korejčík.

As far as I remember. We were only four amateurs in the course, otherwise all former professional footballers. I realized at the time that my family wouldn’t be used to such a burden. If I had reached a higher level as a footballer, I guess continuing my career would have been natural. But I only played at amateur level, at most the regional championship for Neštěmice.

You were worried that the family would suffer. You have two sons, neither plays football, one is a businessman, the other a teacher. Aren’t you sorry?

No, they chose their own path, they’re happy, that’s the most important thing for me. They also say that genes often go back generations. My grandson David was very passionate about football as a young boy and even as a teenager, then somehow it passed. He made his own choice, he’s an adult now. But I’ve had a lot of fun with him football-wise.

The name Kolenatý is written in Czech football history in a distinctive font, the multiple Czechoslovakian representative František Kolenatý was a great figure of the iron Sparta of the 1920s, playing alongside the legendary Karel Pesek-Kádi. Are you related?

I haven’t looked into it, but occasionally such a question has come up in the family. We came to know that we have something in common. But I have nothing officially confirmed.

The Czech Football Association celebrated its 120th anniversary last year. You’re exactly 50 years younger. Do you see any symbol in that?

It may be a nice coincidence, but I’m not looking for a connection. I’m just glad there’s something older than me..