Pavel Nedved Threatens to Call it Quits….Again

By: Bob | December 6th, 2006

One of my daily tasks while manning the World Cup Blog shop was to try to figure out if Pavel Nedved was or wasn’t retired from international football. One day he would say he was done, the next he was eager to suit up for the Czech Republic. The only thing that was ever certain was his resemblance to Goldie Hawn. Nedved’s mercurial ways haven’t necessarily extended to club football. He’s been with Juventus since 2001, sticking with the Italian giants through scandals and even more scandals. He’ll likely stick around for future scandals, but that hasn’t prevented him from threatening to retire today.

Nedved is less than happy with the five-game suspension he has been slapped with for his actions during injury time of a Serie B tilt against Genoa. The man with the golden locks and propensity to spend most of a match in a prone position on the pitch was shown a straight red card for stomping on the ankle of a Genoa player in what appears in the video below to be a calculated move. While he was disputing the call with the official he reportedly kicked the referee, which is kind of a no-no in football.

Are these actions worthy of a 5-game suspension? Nedved doesn’t think so. On Wednesday Nedved, via his agent, expressed his displeasure and pulled the old retirement threat out of his bag of tricks.

“They gave Zidane a three match ban for a headbutt (in the World Cup final), but what did I do to warrant a five match ban?

“If that’s the policy (of the disciplinary commission) I’m going to stop playing football,” his agent told the Gazetta dello Sport.

I imagine this won’t be the first or last time a player compares their transgressions to the one committed by Zidane. FIFA should have banned Zidane for life just so future players can’t whine about their own punishments.

While I happen to think his tackle isn’t worthy of such a suspension, if he did indeed kick a referee than he deserves to be punished. Besides, this is Italy. We’ve seen with the match fixing scandal that punishments are always harsh at first, but with enough moaning and legal action they can be reduced to next to nothing. If you haven’t noticed, Juventus has already worked their way into the promotion zone in Serie B, a fact that is almost predictable as Nedved’s talk of retirement.