America Take Notice: Czech Superstar Nedved Quick to Lose Temper

I hope Bruce Arena and members of his World Cup squad were watching Arsenal’s historic victory over Juventus in their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal second-leg clash on Wednesday. Because if they were paying attention, they saw one of their upcoming group stage opponents’ best players lose his cool.

Czech playmaker Pavel Nedved had just returned from a one-game suspension for accumulating three cautions throughout the year-long tournament, so it was really no surprise when he earned another yellow card early in the second half against Arsenal’s young Ivorian defender Emmanuel Eboue for a body-check along the touchline after the ball had already gone out of play. It was foolish and unnecessary, but clearly demonstrated the level of frustration that Nedved was feeling as the clock ticked away with Juve still down by two goals.

Still facing the same deficit with less than a quarter-of-an-hour left to play in the match, Eboue – who is one to watch in Germany as he and Arsenal teammate Kolo Toure will anchor a formidable back line for an Ivory Coast squad that features Chelsea’s controversial striker Didier Drogba up front – used his body to shield the ball away from Nedved less than ten yards from the corner flag at his own end of the field. If Arena and his boys were taking notice, they saw Nedved show his proclivity for earning the wrath of the referee.

As Steven Gerrard had done in a recent Merseyside derby against crosstown rivals Everton, Nedved scythed down his opponent with a reckless challenge – one that was dangerous in the first place, but downright amateurish in light of the fact that he’d already earned a caution earlier in the match.

What Arsenal’s scoreless draw at the Stade delle Alpi showed was that you don’t necessarily have to play great in order to progress in a competition such as this. Poise and strength of character will sometimes be enough to succeed (and I am by no means trying to imply that the Gunners aren’t incredibly talented…because they most certainly are). However, the point here is that like with most sports, football is as much a game of the mind as much as it is a game of skill. And if America is to succeed in Germany, they will have to play smarter football and make fewer mistakes than their opponents; and frustrating Nedved when they take on the Czechs might be the key to victory in that match.

On an unrelated note, Arsenal ‘keeper Jens Lehmann might be well on his way to securing the starting position for the Germans if he continues to keep up his record-breaking ways in the Champions League. Not since Ajax scored against him in September has he had to retrieve the ball from the back of the net. That’s more than 700 consecutive minutes. Should he continue to impress against Spanish upstarts Villarreal in the semis followed by either AC Milan or Barcelona at the final in Paris, you can expect to see Bayern Munich’s Ollie Kahn watching his countryman and rival, Lehmann, from the substitutes bench at the World Cup.