The Chelsea keeper denies claims by the former Chelsea
manager that he helped get him the sack last season, as he tells
Sam Wallace in Prague
Petr Cech has spent the summer coaching Prague's next
generation of footballers at the academy that bears his name, but
today he goes back to the day job. Carlo Ancelotti's Chelsea regime
starts this morning and his goalkeeper finds himself in the unusual
position of having to defend his reputation against allegations
that he is a troublemaker.
A humid Prague afternoon surrounded by the 160 young footballers
who have won a sought-after place at the Petr Cech Academy feels a
long way from the recriminations of former Chelsea managers but, as
is the way with this club, they are unavoidable. In one of his
first interviews since his sacking in February, Luiz Felipe Scolari
last week accused Cech of being one of three players – Michael
Ballack and Didier Drogba being the others– who contributed to him
being forced out.
Cech is eager to set the record straight, but first he is
contemplating meeting the fifth Chelsea manager he has played under
in the last two years. "If you look at Ancelotti's record you would
say that we cannot make any mistake appointing this manager," Cech
says. "For me, he is the right man for the club. Hopefully he will
be successful and he will stay for at least seven years which would
be good."
Ancelotti is presented to the media this morning, showcasing the
English he has been studying intensively over the last month and,
come this lunchtime, he will be addressing his squad for the first
time. Like his predecessors he will contemplate a group of
battle-hardened internationals, a team that has reached the
Champions League semi-finals in five of the last six years and a
club that is now being out-spent by Manchester City.
This time, Cech says, Chelsea need their new manager to be a
success. "It's always better if you have one manager for a long
period because then you can build the team," he said. "In football
you always have two or three changes in the team every summer and
it changes the atmosphere and the life among the group. So the
ideal scenario is to have the same manager for five or six years
but in football it is hard to get that."
Last summer's appointment was Scolari, another man who looked
like he fitted the bill perfectly, but within eight months he was
dismissed by Roman Abramovich. Last week Scolari accused Cech of
becoming "furious" and treating him "coldly" in a row over the
goalkeeping coach Christophe Lollichon. The Brazilian claimed that
Cech wanted the French coach as his personal trainer and disagreed
when he was challenged over it.
There is no doubt that Lollichon and Cech are close. They were
at the French club Rennes together before Cech left for Chelsea in
2004 and Lollichon has come to Prague to help out at the academy.
But Cech denies that he told Scolari he wanted to work alone with
Lollichon. He admits to a disagreement with Scolari over training
but not over Lollichon.
"I'm disappointed with [Scolari] because never in my life have I
had a personal goalkeeping coach," he says. "I've never heard of
that happening anywhere. I was really saddened because Christophe
was the goalkeeping coach for the whole first team and even the
academy boys who trained with us occasionally. He treated me the
same way as he did [Henrique] Hilario or Rhys Taylor. We always
started the training together and then we trained with the team.
What was said was not true."
Cech is bemused as to why Scolari has made the allegations. "I
always had a huge respect for Mr Scolari and then suddenly in the
middle of the season we had a change in the way we trained the
goalkeepers," he says.
"It changed the way we could work and I was surprised because
the way we had been training was getting results, keeping clean
sheets and we had the best defensive record in the league. Then
suddenly we had a complete change which I couldn't understand."
The disagreement was a change to the schedule of when the
goalkeepers would train alone and when they would join the main
group. "It was a change in terms of our preparation," Cech says.
"The only thing I did was ask why. That was the only time I went to
see him and suddenly I was identified as someone who made trouble
which is not right. In the end, he was the manager and you have to
respect what the manager wants. I was not happy and I told him but
you play for the team and not yourself so I respected him and
adapted. We tried to do it the way he wished."
When Cech arrived from Rennes Chelsea were one of the most
powerful movers in the European transfer market – now they are not
even the most powerful in England.
The imminent acquisition of Yuri Zhirkov from CSKA Moscow for
£18m and Daniel Sturridge and Ross Turnbull on free transfers does
not compare with City's buying power, not to mention their pursuit
of John Terry. Does that worry Cech? "Just buying will never bring
you success unless you know exactly where you want to go," he says.
"At the moment it looks like City knows what their plan is. They
try to buy defenders, they have bought strikers and midfielders. I
would say that they have a good idea of what they want to
achieve.
"The second example is Real Madrid, they have spent a lot of
money on strikers and midfielders yet their biggest problem last
season was in defence. You cannot always win 5-3. If you spend a
lot you need to get the right players in the right positions, not
just because you want to show you have the money. The most
important thing is the vision."
Cech says that Ancelotti needs time to assess the squad before
he buys: "There will be time to sign players." he says, and he is
not worried about the club's position. "We always have that
spirit," he says. "Even in difficult periods we always bounce back
and this will be a big help for the new manager because the team is
strong."
The man himself looks out over the pitches of Sparta Prague's
training ground now full with the young members of the Petr Cech
Academy and says that he feels he is in the form of his life.
In October it will be three years since Stephen Hunt's knee
fractured his skull in a Premier League game against Reading but
Cech believes he is better than ever.
His doctors have told him that the headguard will have to stay
on for another season but the philosophy remains the same.
"My target is to get the ball. If I have to put my head in then
I have to put my head in. If something is going to happen then it's
going to happen. I remember the first time [after the injury] I was
going for the ball and I wanted to clear it but I couldn't kick it.
It was not good, but I knew the only way I was going to get the
ball was to put my head in and I got the ball. I would say it even
made me stronger because when you have been through a difficult
period you know how to recover."
