Pavel Nedved

Nedvěd got his international breakthrough when he was part of the Czech national team which went to the final of Euro 96, where they lost to Germany. Nedvěd's performance did not go unnoticed and he transferred from Sparta Prague to Lazio in the Serie A in 1996. At Lazio, Nedvěd won the Coppa Italia in 1997/98, and the last international Cup Winners' Cup tournament in 1999 against Real Mallorca, where he scored the last ever goal of the tournament in a 2-1 win for Lazio.

Nedvěd eventually moved to Juventus in 2001 for a fee of 41.2 million euros, as a replacement for Zinedine Zidane who had transferred to Spain's Real Madrid the same summer. He proved more than an adequate replacement for the Frenchman, his tremendous workrate and guile playing an integral part in Juventus' scudetto-winning teams of 2001/02, 2002/03, 2004/05 and 2005/06.

Nedvěd helped lead Juventus into the 2003 Champions League final against AC Milan, but he was forced to sit out the final because of accumulation of yellow cards, after being booked in the semifinal for tackling Real Madrid midfielder Steve McManaman. At the end of the year, he won the European Footballer of the Year award.

By the time of his first retirement from international football, Nedvěd was captain of the Czech national team. In the Euro 2004 semi-final against Greece, Nedvěd was injured when he slammed his knee into a Greek player while jumping for the ball. Though he continued on the pitch for a while, he was eventually replaced by Vladimír Šmicer. Some observers of the match considered Nedvěd's injury to be a key factor in the Czechs' defeat. The injury also led him to retire from the national team in September 2004. Nedvěd had scored 18 goals in 73 games for the Czechs and played for his country at Euro 96, Euro 2000, and Euro 2004.

He came out of international retirement to play for the Czechs in their 2006 World Cup qualifying playoff against Norway in November 2005. The Czechs won both matches 1-0, first in Oslo and then in Prague, to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the first FIFA World Cup appearance for the Czech team since the partition of Czechoslovakia. Nedvěd chose to remain eligible for national selection, and was named to the Czech World Cup squad. Despite an impressive start against the USA, the Czechs failed to qualify against Italy and Ghana. He then retired definitely shortly after the World Cup, his last international match ending in a 3-1 loss against Serbia.