Cech - How I became a goalkeeper

By Lloyd Webb

Petr Cech has revealed how he became a goalkeeper.

The 33-year-old started his career in his native Czech Republic before joining Rennes in France and eventually moving to London to represent both Chelsea and Arsenal.

Cech says football was not his preferred sport as child but he soon excelled at it and quickly found his ideal position.

“I always wanted to play ice hockey as a kid, it was always my first choice but at that time you would have to buy all the equipment, so you can imagine the financial aspect of that,” he told Arsenal Player.

“My father was very clever and he knew that I enjoyed any kind of sport so he took me to the football club when I was seven or six and and obviously, as soon as I started playing football, I knew that I really liked it.

“When I was eight we actually had a game and our goalkeeper didn't come but one of the coaches had seen me a few times in goal at the end of a session so he said, 'I think you have been doing pretty well there, maybe you should just play this game.'

“I agreed to play this one game and the following day when I came to training the goalkeeper coach took me to one side and said now you are a goalkeeper.

“I realised when I was 15 and I got my first call up to the under-15 national team, then under-16, that if I continued doing well and working hard and if I stayed in the team I had a big chance to go category by category. It was probably there when I realised that if I worked hard enough and stayed in the national team year by year then this is going to be my biggest chance to have success.”