Tomáš Rosický

Tomáš Rosický was born on 4 October 1980 in Prague. His father sent him to the ČKD Kompresory football academy when the boy was 6. Tomáš did not spend much time there, having played only one game, which turned out to be successful for his youth team as they won 3-0. After that Rosický moved to the Prague side Sparta academy, but not due to his great skills. The thing is Sparta wanted to see Tomáš’s elder brother Jiří in their squad. Father gave his consent, but imposed one condition – his son Tomáš would also play for the new team.

From that time the young footballer began to take part in matches of different youth teams of the club. On 14 April 1999, he made his debut for the main Sparta squad in the match against FC Boda. Right after that game Rosický’s career went uphill as he made his debut in the league match in May and became a regular in the following season.

In September 1990 Tomáš Rosický scored his first goal for the senior Sparta team and made his debut in the UEFA Champions League, where he contributed a goal as well. In the summer 2000 the player went to UEFA Euro 2000 with the best Czech footballers. Tomáš made two appearances, but his national team failed to climb up to the knockout stage, because the Netherlands and France got to the quarter-finals.

The season that followed Euro 2000 was the last ‘Czech’ season in the player’s career. Borussia Dortmund bought ‘The Little Mozart’ and Tomáš soon made himself familiar with the new club, starting to be its integral part. The most successful season of his club career began in the autumn 2001. Tomáš Rosický helped his team to pick up the golden medals of the league due to his outstanding performance and a huge number of assists. Four days later his club took part in the UEFA Cup final, but it was a 2-3 loss for Borussia.

Immediately after that, the club started its fall in the tournament table, which led to financial problems. Borussia tried to hold Tomáš, raising his price, and the club eventually managed to sell the footballer to English side Arsenal for an undisclosed fee.