Country: England
'A doctor told me I might not play again' - Tomas Rosicky on friendships and frustration at Arsenal
Tomas Rosicky reflects on his time at Arsenal and what he has learnt after becoming Sparta Prague's sporting director
theathletic.com
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By James McNicholas
Jan 15, 2024
“When I joined Arsenal, I thought, ‘I will win everything’,” Tomas Rosicky tells The Athletic.
In the end, it was eight years before he lifted a trophy. It was a challenging period, for player and club alike. Rosicky suffered a serious injury and Arsenal’s squad-building was hindered by paying for the Emirates Stadium. In their early discussions, did Arsène Wenger ever admit the move to the new stadium would impose strict limitations on transfer spending?
“No, he didn’t,” says Rosicky. “But, in the end, it wouldn’t have changed my mind anyway. I wanted Arsenal and only Arsenal.”
Rosicky played for three clubs, Sparta Prague, Borussia Dortmund, and Arsenal, returning to Sparta in 2016, first as a player and now as a sporting director — a job he has been in for five years.
Last season, the Czech club claimed their first league title in nine years after being adrift in third place at the mid-winter break.
“The plan was to bring the honour and the pride back to the club,” says Rosicky, 43. “That meant winning the league and qualifying for the Champions League. I’m proud of our progress, but we still need to do the final part.”
Sparta lost their Champions League qualifier on penalties against Copenhagen but have qualified from a challenging Europa League group containing Rangers and Real Betis. A knockout tie against Galatasaray awaits.
But progress has not always been smooth. The situation Rosicky inherited is reminiscent of Arsenal in the post-Wenger years. “The year before I took over, the winners of the Czech league knew they would go straight into the Champions League group stage,” Rosicky says. “That’s a massive thing for Czech clubs, so Sparta invested heavily into players over 30. They got long contracts and it didn’t work out.
Rosicky is now a sporting director (Sparta Prague)
“The difference in salary between the Czech guys and the new signings was quite big. It made the dressing room dysfunctional.
“So we changed the strategy completely. We invested much more in young players. We tried to connect ourselves more with the academy, too, because the academy is very solid. We tried to focus on the Spartans in the team, keeping that Czech core, because we’d lost our identity
“We said, ‘We will need three years before we win again’. You can imagine, it’s not easy to say to people, ‘We won’t win now for three years’.
“We wanted to bring back the history, the identity, the never-give-up attitude, the Spartan identity: we want to play with intensity, we want to have the ball, we want to play from the back, we want to open the spaces.”
It was the style of play that first attracted Rosicky to Arsenal. He fell in love with those early Arsène Wenger teams of Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry.
After moving to Dortmund, Rosicky had the opportunity to join big clubs in Italy and Spain, but he chose the club he saw as the most natural fit.
But playing good football wasn’t enough. Rosicky keenly felt the absence of silverware. “I was so driven to win that sometimes it was too much,” he says. “I wanted it so much, I was almost possessed. I did everything I could to make it happen.”
The closest Rosicky initially came to lifting a Premier League title was in the 2007-08 season. “I thought many times about what could have been,” he says. “It was the time where I enjoyed the football side most. The group we had, the quality, how we linked together, how we played.
“There was a lot of friendship inside the group. That can give you a margin. If something happens to your friend, you will protect him. It’s personal.
“It was a great team and a good season — until certain moments happened.
“But on the other hand, it also became the worst time for me because I got injured in January. After that, Robin van Persie got hurt, Eduardo broke his leg, and we didn’t have the strength in numbers to finish it.”
Over the next few years, many of the stars left. “If we’d won the league, more players would have stayed,” says Rosicky. “Robin, Mathieu Flamini, Gilberto Silva, Gael Clichy, Cesc Fabregas. If we’d stayed together it could have been really great.”
At some point, we have to talk about injuries. “That’s part of my story,” Rosicky admits.
He became aware of a problem with his knee during a 3-0 win at Fulham in January 2008. “I just got a kick with a stud at that exact point,” he recalls. “I felt like something wasn’t right, but I finished the game.” Rosicky did more than that — he scored Arsenal’s final goal.
Rosicky celebrates his goal at Fulham in 2008 with Cesc Fabregas (Phil Cole/Getty Images)
Arsenal’s next game was an FA Cup tie against Newcastle. Rosicky managed to train the day before and Wenger started him. “After 10 minutes, when I attempted my first sprint, I realised I couldn’t do it.”
Rosicky had suffered a total rupture of a tendon in his knee. It was an injury that would sideline him for 18 months, game to game.
“They tried to reattach the tendon, but it wasn’t successful,” he recalls. “I kept getting close to training, but every time I couldn’t sprint. It was setback after setback.”
His ongoing absence took a psychological toll.
“It was difficult,” says Rosicky. “2008 was the year we thought we would win the league. In the summer there was the European Championship, I was the captain of the Czech national team, and I missed it.
“Suddenly, I just couldn’t get back. If you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s not easy.
“You’re relying on your family, the people around you, but it’s a very difficult time for them as well. They want to help, but sometimes you just want to be alone, you don’t want to drag them into your problems. Sometimes you behave towards them in a way that they don’t deserve.
“The worst time is when you don’t know if you will play again. You can see the doctors don’t know what to do with you.
“I remember one doctor telling me I might not play again. I was 27 and coming to my best years as a football player. I was mentally destroyed. Everything went blurry, I don’t remember the moments after. It’s like your life is ending because you were doing what you love and suddenly you might not have it.
“I learned as soon as you can see that light in the tunnel, then you just have to go for it. I could never have made it back if I didn’t have that work ethic to play again, recover, and win trophies.”
Rosicky experienced a breakthrough after visiting a surgeon in Augsburg, Germany. The procedure would save his career. “The doctor explained that my body creates an unusual amount of scar tissue,” says Rosicky. “They told me my tendon was basically like it had been put in the microwave, it was stuck. They had to clean it all out.”
When Rosicky woke up, his leg was held in a machine that constantly kept it moving. The idea was to keep the tendons mobile and prevent his body from forming more scar tissue. “It was very uncomfortable for a long period.”
Against the odds, Rosicky returned to play at the highest level, but after such a long lay-off, he inevitably began to suffer with niggling muscular injuries.
“It’s all linked to my history,” he says. “I started to play very young. If you look at the pictures, I was small, skinny — I weighed about 60kg — playing against men.
“I got smashed so many times. I thought I could do one more year at Sparta before I moved somewhere. I was already playing in the Champions League, the national team. My father was always a bit sceptical about moving too early. He encouraged me to wait a little bit.
“But it got worse and worse. I remember one day I came home and it was my father who said, ‘You need to go or they will kill you’. So I went to Dortmund.”
Only one catch: “It wasn’t better!” laughs Rosicky. “A lot of teams in Germany played with a classical No 10 and they were used to marking them man-to-man. Against every team, I had a marker on me who didn’t even want to play when they had possession.
“On the football side, it was great for my development, but on the physical side, I got hammered.
“I remember one particular game, for example, where the guy was constantly kicking my Achilles. After that, I started to feel it a little bit. It was manageable, but it wasn’t like it was before. In the end, at 36, I needed an Achilles operation.
“It was all cumulative. If you look at the others as well from when we were at Arsenal — Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo Walcott… maybe it was too much from the start. We can only speculate, but that’s what I think.”
Although Rosicky did make a full return, that 2008 injury had serious repercussions. It stopped him in his tracks, just as he looked to be scaling new heights. He was 27 and approaching his peak. In the first half of 2007-08, he had already scored six goals in 18 Premier League games.
“I had come to the point that I felt the best in my career,” he says. “I was always a team player, but I felt I was strong enough to decide the games myself.
“When I came back, I never had that feeling again.”
By the time Rosicky rediscovered his rhythm and his confidence, age was catching up with him.
His time out did give him a new appreciation of the game. “It gave me a different perspective,” he says. “After that, I played every game like it was my last.”
As the years went by, Rosicky went from an automatic starter to a valued squad player. He had opportunities to move but refused.“I always said I would not leave until we won something,” he says. “It’s a difficult time when your friends are leaving and changes are happening in the squad, but I didn’t want to have unfinished business.”
Rosicky came on as a substitute in the 2014 FA Cup final that ended the club’s — and his — long wait for a trophy. In the celebratory team photo, Rosicky is stood in front of the sponsorship hoardings, screaming in joy and relief amid the spray of Champagne.
Rosicky with the FA Cup in 2014 (David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
“We had a great group and we connected with the fans,” says Rosicky. “Those are the moments you don’t forget.”
There were other great moments: a goal in the first 5-2 win over Sp**s in 2012, the stunning winner at White Hart Lane two years later, a sumptuous team goal against Sunderland that rivals Wilshere’s against Norwich for being the apotheosis of Wenger’s football.
Like team-mate Mikel Arteta, he was interested in coaching towards the end of his playing career.
“I remember in my last year at Arsenal, I barely played,” says Rosicky. “I was even doing individual video work with Hector Bellerin. When it was clear I would be leaving, Arsène offered me to stay there, do my badges, and work with the reserves.”
But Rosicky wanted to continue playing — and to come home. “I always planned to come back to Sparta,” he says. “It was about coming full circle, ending the story where I started.”
Rosicky was plagued by injuries in his second spell. “My body was destroyed,” he says. “As retirement approached, Rosicky realised he wanted to take on a role with a broader overview than just coaching. “I became really curious about everything — what happens behind the curtain, the strategy, the long-term plans,” he says.
“When I retired, I spent a year as an advisor to the board and the previous sporting director. It was a one-year transition period, enabling me to watch and learn everything that was going on — not just in the football department, but in the whole club.”
The transition was not always easy. “I learned quickly that I had to take a step back from the players,” he says. “There were guys who’d been my team-mates, who I played with for the national team. I had to tell them, ‘You’re not good enough anymore’. That’s something I did not enjoy at all.”
Alongside chief executive Frantisek Cupr — and Tomas Krivda who succeeded him last year — Rosicky has sought to modernise the club and improve the culture. Some of that work has been necessary — in 2021, Sparta’s fans were charged with discriminatory behaviour following alleged racist abuse during their Champions League qualifier against Monaco. Later that year, there was a row between Rangers and Sparta over the booing of Glen Kamara, although UEFA’s subsequent investigation brought no charge.
Sparta have placed “No to racism” cards on seating in their stadium and manager Brian Priske has emphasised the need “to send a signal that we are pro-football and that racism doesn’t belong whatsoever in football in any aspect”. Those sentiments are echoed by Rosicky: “We as a club are strongly against racism.”
They have built a new training facility and restored Sparta to the summit of Czech football. The support of billionaire owner Daniel Kretinsky has, of course, been vital.
“I’m proud of what we’ve done,” Rosicky says. “It has not always been easy. After my third year, the people here turned against me. We lost the cup final, patience ran out, and the fans started chanting that I should leave.
“I went to the owner and the CEO and said, ‘If you think it’s for the best, I’ll finish — because I will not change the strategy. I think it’s correct’.
“But they stuck with it. They told me to find a new coach and continue.” Priske’s appointment was a turning point and the Dane’s success has smashed the stigma of foreign coaches not getting results in Czech football.
Rosicky with Sparta manager Priske (Sparta Prague)
Rosicky feels the pressure of a matchday more than ever. “As a player, even when I was already experienced, I had a kind of tension, a nervousness going into the game,” he says. “I loved that feeling. As soon as I lost that, I finished.
“I thought it would be different as a sporting director. I thought I would have a better perspective of the situation. But now it’s getting worse and worse, I’m very stressed all the time! I think it’s because you are helpless.”
And what of the future?
“When I started this job, I never had the ambition to do it anywhere else but here,” says Rosicky. “This was about a pure love for the club where I started.
“But that’s evolving. I had an offer to go and interview for a position with a big club. I refused as I have work still to do here, but it changed my thinking a little bit.”
As he showed at Arsenal, Rosicky will not leave until he has accomplished his goal. “I still have unfinished business here,” he says. “That’s our common goal: to bring Sparta back to the Champions League.”
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