As a native of Plzeň, I was pleased when the local football club, 100 years after its founding, started playing a high-quality offensive football, which even FC Barcelona wouldn’t be ashamed of. At that time, the incoming coach built a team of players who were not afraid to play against the aforementioned Barcelona or other clubs during several years of participation in the highest European football competition, the Champions League. Out of sheer joy and thankfulness, I began to document the best moments of this great decade.
Limberský, you’re a lout!
David Limberský, the enfant terrible of the top Czech football league, has long been a contender for the immortalization of his mix of football skills, healthy audacity and an endearing laissez faire approach to everything around him. A native of Pilsen, David always loved playing in FC Viktoria Plzeň and for a long time he was a thorn in the side of AC Sparta Praha fans. Whenever he had the ball on his foot or was doing the throw-in, there was a deafening, shrill, whistle. Some would collapse, yet David clearly enjoyed it. And when the Sparta fans’ chant “Limberský, you’re a lout!” was added, David smiled and applauded toward the raging bleachers. Yes, I’m a lout, it eats you and I’m lovin’ it. Just as American blacks appropriately appropriated usurping derogatory words, they literally usurped them and began to address each other using the swear word, the chant “Limberský, you‘re a lout!” became a favorite chant of Pilsner fans of Viktoria Plzeň. Yes, he’s a lout, but our lout. So when he and his wife Lenka opened a barber shop in Pilsen, it was clear to me what would be portrayed in the hagiographic painting of David. Years ago, as I traveled around Africa, I noticed interesting primitive images hanging over the entrances to barbershops. Amateurishly painted portraits of men from the front, in profile and from the back, with different types of hairstyles. They were brilliant. All the customer had to do was point to the picture, and the barber-hairdresser immediately knew how to cut his client.
I decided to create an oil painting for his barber shop. The background matched not only the color of the barber shop walls, but also that of the football turf. Yet it could also be a dark green board in front of which this bad child had been summoned. And so the names of famous clubs appear on this background – the Goliaths, against whom David played, not only in the Champions League. David, of course, also likes Pilsen, the golden, liquid one, and thus a combination of beer and the “haircut hovado” leads to the league cups. David got five of them!
Tomáš Chorý and his tap – the header of dreams
Viktoria Plzeň beat AS Roma. It was about speed, audacity and skill, maybe even a bit of luck. Had not Tomáš measured two meters, his header might not have had such an inpact. Pow! What happened? Milan Petržela was substituting in the 71. minute and right away he initiated the dream combination leading to the goal. On the right wing of the midfield, he exchanged a ball with Patrik Hrošovský for a few touches, while Patrik noticed Jan Kovařík running forward on the other side of the field. Patrik sent him a beautiful accurate 50-meter pass, which Kovařík processed with his chest and right after fired at the goalkeeper Mirante, who punched this the shot out with his fists, unfortunately for AS Roma, straight in the direction of the approaching tower Tomáš Chorý. Tomáš was set to meet the ball (at the last second he had to change the direction of his movement) and then in flight he hit the balloon with a precise header. A goal, close to the nearer pole. Mirante didn’t stand a chance and just got tangled in the net. A euphoric goal!
Patrik Hrošovský and his cannon against Goliath
The Los Blancos, or the White Ballet (as they are called in Czech), played a beautiful football at its Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid. It was a real match between David and Goliath. With an annual budget of EUR 10 million, Viktoria Plzeň met Real Madrid with a budget of EUR 566 million. Imagine as if 622 players played against eleven Pilsen players. Imagine those players as standing on their half of the field, as each of them occupies a square of about 2.35 x 2.35 meters. And yet Viktorka scores a goal. Aleš Čermák makes a quick pass to Patrik Hrošovský and Patrik shoots a cannonball from the edge of the penalty box. Neither Marcelo nor Casemiro, nor the fouler Sergio Ramos, could stop him. The goalkeeper Keylor Navas only jumped toward the ball, yet didn’t reach it.
Pavel Vrba conducts flips in football heaven
Pavel Vrba was sent to Pilsen straight from the football heaven. It took him a few years to build the dream team, which eventually dominated the highest competition level – The Czech First League – for almost 10 years. With Viktoria Plzeň, on the occasion of the club’s centenary in 2011, he won the first title of the league, followed by two more top wins. In 2013, after which he was recalled (here I suspect the behind-the-scenes subversive work of the then head of Czech football, who thus interrupted his amazing coaching ride and removed a dangerous competitor) to the position of coach of the national team. When he returned in 2017 he won the Czech First League with Pilsen again. He took Pilsen to the highest places, the European League and the famous Champions League. With FC Viktoria Plzeň he played against clubs like FC Barcelona, FK Bate Borisov, Real Madrid, FC Bayern Munich, AS Roma, CSKA Moscow, SSC Napoli, Atletico Madrid, AC Milan, Manchester City. Pilsen knocked many of them to their knees. He celebrated his victories with famous summersaults on the football field. In this painting I imagined him conducting his throws in the football heaven.
