Wild years of football legend. What was Bomber doing when he was at his best?

The native of Přerov nad Labem was one of the biggest stars of the 1990 World Championships in Italy, where after the championship he stayed and scored goals in the FC Genoa jersey. Lots of goals. Many times, with his shooting potential, he also helped the Prague Sparta and the Czechoslovak or Czech national team to succeed.

With 17 goals scored, Tomáš Skuhravý belongs to the Top 20 best national team shooters in domestic history. And he would certainly add a lot more goals, if his knees didn’t betray him at the age of 30, his extremely worn joints unfortunately could not bear the additional burden of top sport.

The grumpy disappeared from the ramp lights before he and especially his many fans liked it. But still, he managed to prove a lot in football. Let’s remember that.

Venue: Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. Opponents: Real Madrid and Sparta Prague. Date: September 28, 1983. Persons and cast: coach Alfrédo di Stefano on the home side, on the field of Camacho, Stielike or Santillana, Praguers are led by Václav Ježek, Berger, Hašek, Chovanec are in the game. birthday Tomáš Skuhravý.

In the 60th minute Vítězslava Lavička replaced the goal, in the 73rd he scored the goal to 1: 1. In addition to the home win of 3: 2, Sparta advances through Real Madrid to the 2nd round of the UEFA Cup, in which they finally reach the quarterfinals that season.

Tomáš Skuhravý belonged to the golden generation of Prague’s Sparta. In the 80’s he won a total of 5 championship titles and 3 domestic cup trophies with her. In the domestic competition, he also wore the jersey of the Red Star Cheb, in which he completed 2 years of basic military service.

In 1985, he looked at the adult national team for the first time. He replaced Václav Daňek in a friendly match against Poland in Brno. Skuhravý did not score, as in the following 12 international matches.

But in qualifying for promotion to the 1990 World Championships, he was already starting to fire sharply. He contributed to the victory over Luxembourg with two goals, he soon added the winning goal in Switzerland and in the autumn he also opened the home revenge score with the Helvetic Cross country team.

At the end of the qualification it was necessary to get a point in Portugal. And Skuhravý was not missing in the line-up that played him thanks to a goalless draw. As a result, Czechoslovakia has returned to the World Cup after 8 years.

The year 1990 turned out perfectly for Tomáš Skuhravý. During his time, he scored a total of 7 goals in the national team jersey, 5 of them at the World Championships.

The World Cup was played in Italy as early as 1934, and Oldřich Nejedlý also scored 5 goals on it at that time. Grumpy, he loosely followed him. But unlike Nejedlý, he did not reach the king of shooters in the tournament unfortunately, the home Italian Salvatore Schillaci was even better in 1990. By the way, Schillaci in the Italian jersey scored “only” 7 goals in his entire career, but six of them at the 1990 World Cup.

The Czechoslovak team entered the tournament in Florence. The opponent was the USA team. And a shocking number of Czechoslovak flags appeared in the stands at that time.

The footballers advanced to the championship only a few days before the Velvet Revolution, which changed social conditions in the country. Borders opened, and Czechs and Slovaks were suddenly able to travel freely wherever they wanted. And they went to Italy for the World Cup in really large numbers.

Even this element, which of the matches that were not played in Czechoslovakia, the representatives were not yet used to, helped them in the beginning of the World Cup. The Americans defeated 5: 1. And Tomáš Skuhravý contributed to it with two goals scored.

The match against Austria was a key match for the group. After half an hour of play, Jozef Chovanec inhaled to penetrate the opponent’s sixteen, forcing a foul. And Michal Bílek, today the coach of Viktoria Plzeň, turned the penalty kick into a penalty kick.

After two matches in the group, Czechoslovakia had some progress. And the 0: 2 defeat with Italy did not change anything, in which the charges of Jozef Vengloš and Václav Ježek did not like several judges’ verdicts.

The essential thing happened on June 23, 1990 at the stadium in Bari. The eight-final opponent of Czechoslovakia was the Costa Rica team. In the first half, the only goal scored by Tomáš Skuhravý. In the 54th minute, the opponent equalized. But then only the Czechs fired, two more goals were added by Skuhravý, Luboš Kubík also conjured a beautiful goal “penny”.

Czechoslovakia won 4: 1 and Skuhravý made history as the first footballer in the history of the final tournaments of the World Cup, who scored 3 goals in one match. If referee Kirschen wished him a little more, there could have been four goals.

“The referee did not recognize one goal in my head, an offensive foul whistled for me, but the defending player slipped himself,” a little Grumpy was angry even after years.

Skuhravý became the 42nd scorer to score a hat-trick at the World Cup. If the referee recognized his fourth goal, he would be only the 7th football player in history after Wilimovsky, Ademir, Kocsis, Fontain, Eusebius and Butragueň, who did something like that at the World Cup.

In 1994, Soviet footballer Oleg Salenko overcame all these in a total of 5 hits on the Cameroon net.

Czechoslovakia thus reached the quarterfinals, in which the favored team of Germany lurked in Milan. The team with Matthäus or Klinsmann on the field and coach Beckenbauer on the bench prevailed for most of the match.

However, the only goal scored by Matthäus from the penalty kick after a somewhat controversially whistled foul. In addition, the Austrian judge Kohl expelled Lubomír Moravčík in the second half, who protested in vain against the fact that the opponent called off his football with his intervention.

Even so, the quarter-final participation in the tournament was a very pleasant surprise and the biggest success at the World Championships since the silver Chilean eleven.

Since then, the Czech footballers have started at the World Cup only once, they have not advanced from the group at the 2006 World Cup. The independent Slovak national team took part in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and advanced to the round of 16.

The success of the team from 1990 thus remains an unsurpassed result from the World Cup. And Tomáš Skuhravý was rightly the greatest hero of this choice.

Of course, the big star of the championship could not be overlooked in the transfer market. FC Genoa (Genoa) bought the Skuhravý club from Sparta. And he did well. With 57 goals in the Genoa jersey, Skuhravý became the most successful scorer in the history of this club.

In the offensive phase, he formed a great pair with Uruguayan Carlos Aguilera. In the 1990/91 season, they both scored 15 league goals.

Only Gianluca Vialli (19) and Lothar Matthäus (16) were higher in the Serie A shooting table. Skuhravý overshot, for example, Robert Baggio or Jürgen Klinsmann (both 14).

It should be added that the Italian Serie A was at that time the most stellar competition on the continent. And it had a reputation as a defensively tuned league in which it was very difficult to score goals.

Thanks to Skuhravý and Aguiler’s goals, FC Genoa finished sensationally fourth and got into the UEFA Cup. He was also successful in it, he made it to the semifinals, where he lost to the later winner, Ajax Amsterdam.

In 1991, Tomáš Skuhravý also became the domestic Footballer of the Year. A year earlier, his ego had a hard time bearing the fact that he had not won this individual award, although he had become the second best scorer of the World Cup. At that time, journalists preferred team captain Ján Kocian.

But in 1991, Skuhravý won the survey.

The national team was led in the years 1990-93 by coach Milan Máčala. And he was a little unhappy with the new situation. From the times of socialism, coaches were used to the autocratic approach and the great discipline of footballers. But suddenly many things were different.

“But what am I supposed to do with him when I come to a meeting with a Škoda and he in a Ferrari?”

He was always a bit grumpy of “wild eggs” and during this period his fads became more frequent.

The story is that Skuhravý did not appear for the preparatory match of the national team with Austria in Vienna during the first half. And visibly under steam. But with the club team, the national team lost by two goals during the break. He was afraid of embarrassment, so instead of an educational punishment, he sent Skuhravý to the field.

And “Bomber”, as he has been nicknamed since the 1990 World Cup, scored two goals.

However, the national team did not get to Euro 1992. And even at the 1994 World Cup, the last federal selection did not advance. Although he fought for the tournament in America until the last match in Belgium.

However, Tomáš Skuhravý kept two important national goals in the qualification for Euro 1996. At that time, Dušan Uhrin was already leading the team and the biggest opponent was the Dutch.

The duel with them on Letná did not go well, they were leading from the 7th minute thanks to a hit by Wim Jonek. The second half, however, belonged to the home team and a spectacular turn to 3: 1. Tomáš Skuhravý started it with his goal.

In September 1995, “Bomber” struck again. In the important qualifying match against Norway, he stood for a penalty kick in the 6th minute. He transformed and ran with his jersey pulled over his head to celebrate the drone of angry fans.

At that moment, no one knew that it was his last national performance. His health didn’t let him go to other matches and goals.

Tomáš Skuhravý thus significantly contributed to the progress to the later silver Euro 1996 in England. But he had already lost the tournament itself. His national team balance stopped at 49 matches and 17 goals.

At that time, Tomáš Skuhravý was already a player of Sporting Lisbon due to long-term health problems, but he only played 4 matches in his colors.

As he later revealed, he was able to move to Prague’s Slavia at this stage of his career.

“I don’t think much of it, but it was,” he admits. “Slavia won the title in 1996, I was just finishing abroad, coach František Cipro attracted me. But the knee was already bad, to take someone’s place, just because I’m Skuhravý, it wouldn’t be worth it. “

Grumpy thus remained a Spartan legend, he did not wear a sewn red and white jersey. For a while, however, in 1996 it seemed that he could still try it in the colors of Viktoria Zizkov.

But the squeaky knee just didn’t work anymore, no additional load was possible. The basic characteristics of Tomáš Skuhravý included, in addition to an excellent head game and unceasing combativeness, also the ability to cross the pain threshold far.

However, because of this, he wore his joints to such an extent that nothing much miraculous could be done with them in the then state of sports medicine. And “Bomber” had to end his great football career at the age of 30.

After that, he started just for fun, in lower competitions or various exhibitions. At one time he rehearsed the work of a football official in Příbram.

You can read more about how he lived in his years after his career and what he does today.

It is certain that Tomáš Skuhravý is one of the most famous and successful footballers in our history.