In comparison to the sums being paid for other players in the Premier League, Manchester United really got a bargain when they paid 3,6-million for the exciting Karel Poborsky
SOCCER: Michael Walker
IT WAS a grey, uninviting Monday morning in June but international reporters were still sparring for position on the front steps of the Czech Republic’s hotel in Preston, England. Almost invisible in their midst as he stood in his white flip-flops, long straw hair tucked behind his ears, was the diminutive Karel Poborsky.
If the 24-year-old Czech forward had not previously realised it then surely he did now: he was a star. And not just in his small home town of Trebon in Bohemia, or in Prague where he played his club football for Slavia: Poborsky was now a star all over Europe.
The previous night, playing against Portugal, he had lobbed his way into the collective European imagination, and the continent’s media wanted to know all they could about a boy called Karel.
Unfortunately he was not too forthcoming — a combination of natural shyness and an understandable reluctance to hog the limelight. Asked to describe himself he replied: “It’s difficult to say. I’ve played football all my life.” He paused before adding: “It’s a short biography.”
Indeed it was, and it was clearly not enough for Spanish journalists trying to beef up a story that Real Madrid were interested in signing him. “Who were your idols?” they inquired. “I haven’t had any idols,” said Poborsky. This was not going well.
“Well what about Real Madrid, Lazio, Liverpool?” “I’m finding these out from you,” he replied.
Finally he elaborated. “There is no question that I would like to play in a top league at some stage, be that Italy or Germany. I will do my best to achieve that dream.”
That stage has come quicker than Poborsky thought. Not in Italy or Germany, but in Manchester.
It will not be an easy transition if Poborsky is as withdrawn as people say. He reputedly has even less English than Andrei Kanchelskis had when he arrived at Old Trafford. However, Poborsky told Czech television last week: “Once I’d spoken to Manchester United they were the only team I wanted to join.”
That will please Alex Ferguson, who nipped in after Liverpool made an inquiry but balked at the 3,6- million asking price. Since Kanchelskis and Keith Gillespie left, United have had no one to gallop down the right, and though they won the Double last season with the 20-year-old David Beckham on that side Ferguson stressed: “It is the European experience the boy Poborsky has that is important.”
Ferguson holds Beckham in high regard and called him “our best player pre-season” last weekend. But he said of his new Czech mate: “I thought, looking at Poborsky in the European Championship, that he would give us a different type of player wide on the right, a different way of penetrating on that side.”
Poborsky came on as a ubstitute in Manchester United’s emphatic 4-0 Charity Shield victory over a costly Newcastle side featuring the 15-million Allan Shearer. Afterwards Ferguson said a little mishievously: “Poborssky and [Jordi] Cruyff showed that you don’t have to pay exorbitant prices to get brilliant value.”
Poborsky was born into a sporting family in Trebon, a southern Czech spa town. His father, a useful amateur footballer, was coach of the Trebon team, whose status is described as “English fifth division”.
At 14, Poborsky moved to nearby Ceske Budejovice, where he attended an academy for outstanding young sportsmen. His major subject was football. He learned fast enough to be in the Budejovice first team as a teenager.
His emerging talent was recognised in Prague and just over two years ago he was signed by one of the capital’s teams, Viktoria Zizkov. There he blossomed and earned the first of his 20 caps. Then, surprisingly, he moved again last season, to Slavia Prague.
It proved smart timing: Czech domestic and international football was about to enter its most prosperous phase for years and Slavia were at the forefront. Poborsky had a thrilling debut for them, scoring as they dismissed Roma on the way to the Uefa Cup semi-final. But although he continued to collect outstanding reviews, he appeared unsettled in Prague and frequently travelled with his wife and child back to Trebon.
His quiet demeanour has led many Czechs to question how he will handle a move to the hurly-burly of the Premiership in Manchester, especially bearing the burden of a 3,6-million fee.
But such talk takes little account of the reason he is here. Within the past two months he proved himself a cut above most of the best players in Europe. Wembley will have held no fear for last Sunday — after all he “won” the Czech penalty there in the Euro 96 final — and neither will Old Trafford.
Poborsky played in the 2 —0 defeat by Germany there in the first group match and also in the forgettable semi-final against France. He took the fourth penalty in the shoot-out that day when the Czechs were 4 —3 down. He scored.
ENDS