Nedvěd, Slighávý, Ščasný… The sinner of the year has joined the chosen company and is leading the team to the record

It’s hard to succeed when the team has to play weakened again and again.

“It’s always round and round. I don’t get it, I don’t get it. We have to sit down and solve it internally, exclusion is too much,” says coach Stanislav Hejkal.

When the Králové Hradec midfielder Vojtěch Smrž infamously left the field, he certainly did not realize that he had actually joined very interesting company. In the post-war history of the league, the owner of the Golden Ball Pavel Nedvěd, the current coach of the national team Jaroslav Šilhavý, the owner of five titles as a player or coach Zdeněk Ščasný, two-time champion Lukáš Vácha or Josef Mucha, the father of tennis player Karolína Muchová also managed three red cards in a season in the post-war history of the league.

Šilhavé’s statistics are remarkable. The national team coach played a total of 20 seasons, 465 matches in the Czechoslovak and later the Czech league and scored 26 goals in them. When it comes to cards, he is the absolute record holder in both categories – 12 red and 118 yellow.

“That I got a lot of cards? I don’t even remember the number anymore… (laughs) Attackers were sometimes difficult to catch, that’s why I helped myself with a foul when there was no other way,” grinned Jaroslav Šilhavý as the guest of honor at last year’s exhibition of the Gunners in Kroměříž.

“I was a good guy off the field, the opposite on it. I wanted to win every time, I didn’t drop anything, which is probably the reason for my penalties. But in terms of goals and starts, I think I have a solid record as a defender relative to cards. I’m glad I’ve played league since I was eighteen twenty years old. The coaching career is more successful than the playing career, but I don’t regret anything,” assured Šilhavý.