Jindrich Stanek #16

Profile

Stanek has never got anything for free in his career. He started out as an ice hockey player and was a promising forward, a talent he inherited from his father. But he chose to leave the ice in pursuit of a football career and went straight from Sparta to England, where he was a backup goalkeeper at Everton, facing shots from Romelu Lukaku, Kevin Mirallas and Samuel Eto’o in training. “I felt like I was in another world. I was taking a battering, but I didn’t want to give up,” he later recalled. He dreamed of following in the footsteps of compatriot Petr Cech, but had to take the long way round. He even spent a season in the Czech third division to build his confidence. ”In hindsight, I feel like a cat with seven lives,” he said of his nomadic career. “That’s why when I go to the zoo, I spend most of my time with the tigers. I look for inspiration in them.” He eventually settled with Viktoria Plzen, where his career took off, leading to a move to Slavia Prague in 2024.

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