Petr Čech (; born 20 May 1982) is a Czech professional footballer who played for Chelsea, Arsenal and Rennes. He is the most capped player in the history of the Czech Republic, with 124 caps. He also holds the record for the most clean sheets in Premier League history, with 228. He helped Chelsea win four Premier League titles, four FA Cups, three League Cups, one UEFA Champions league title, and one UEFA Europa League title. He was voted the IFFHS World’s Best Goalkeeper in 2005, and won the UEFA Champions League in 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.
About Petr Čech in brief
Petr Čech (; born 20 May 1982) is a Czech professional footballer who played for Chelsea, Arsenal and Rennes. He is the most capped player in the history of the Czech Republic, with 124 caps. He also holds the record for the most clean sheets in Premier League history, with 228. He was voted the IFFHS World’s Best Goalkeeper in 2005, and won the UEFA Champions League in 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016. He retired from international football in 2016, but returned as a player with Chelsea in 2015. He has also played semi-professional ice hockey as a goaltender for Guildford Phoenix. He won the Premier League Golden Glove with two separate clubs, and has won it a joint record four times; in the 2004–05, 2009–10, 2013–14 and the 2015–16 seasons. He helped Chelsea win four Premier League titles, four FA Cups, three League Cups, one UEFA Champions league title, and one UEFA Europa League title. He represented his country at the 2006 World Cup, as well as the 2004,2008, 2012 and 2016 European Championships. He made his debut in 1999, and made his league debut at the age of 17 in October 1999, in a 3–1 loss against Sparta. His single campaign with the club saw him register a league record of not conceding a goal in 903 competitive minutes. In November 2001, he broke the record formerly held by Theodor Reimann for the longest time elapsed without conceding in the Czech professional league, his run ended when he was beaten by Marcel Melecký of Bohemians.
In July 2002, he moved to French club Rennes, signing a four-year contract for a transfer fee of €5.5 million. He then moved to Chelsea for a fee of £7 million in 2004. In 2015, he joined city rivals Arsenal for £10 million, where he won another FA Cup before initially retiring in 2019; he returned to Chelsea a year later. In the spring of that year, he was awarded the CZK man of the match against Paris Saint-Germain for his performance in the first match of the season. He played in the Euro 2004 All-Star team after helping the Czechs reach the semi-finals, and served as the team’s captain, prior to retiring from international competition in 2016. In his early days, he played as a striker, but moved to the goalkeeper position after breaking his leg at age ten. He currently has a combined role of a player and a technicalperformance advisor for English club Chelsea. He is argued, alongside Peter Schmeichel, to be one of the greatest goalkeepers in European history, and is considered to be the greatest goalkeeper in English football history. He holds a number of goalkeeping records, including the Premier league record for fewest appearances required to reach 100 clean sheets, having done so in 180 appearances, and the most number of clean sheets in a season.
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