Ladislav Vízek

* 1955

  • "We had Yugoslavia in the semi-final, the lot played a little bit and after a tough game we made it. We beat them with good tactics. In the final, the Germans, they eliminated Russia for us. They were unpleasant, we were lucky, they had some Steinbach, he was their only footballer, the others were just bloated young lads, they were such East Germans. We were better footballing wise and Honza Berger didn't sacrifice himself, but he and Steinbach went into battle and then they fought. Paradoxically it helped us, even though Honza was one of the great footballers, he took Steinbach with him, he had a red card. We were better and they had no one to play. Worse was that I got hit in the rib, it swelled up, I couldn't breathe. I said, 'Coach, I have to go down,' even though I wanted to stay. 'No, you have to stay down.' I was the top scorer in the championship. They were watching me personally. I said, 'I can't.' Coach says, 'You always have two, you lure players away, you clear space.' But I caught the ball in the same spots, rolled and had to go down. It was an interesting moment, he would never have substituted me, I wouldn't have gone down either. Jindra Svoboda came after me and scored five minutes later. He would never have gone in. Those were two details, they fit together beautifully. The Germans couldn't do anything, they were tough, they weren't footballing, they didn't have anything on us. We, after a tortuous journey, after qualification in the soccer states, through the final with the Hungarians at Strahov, through the Bulgarians, then the group in St. Petersburg, before we got to Moscow. It was so long that only the best could win, and I say without shame that we were the best. That's why I consider the Olympic medal above all others. We've come a long way, I'm going to say it all the time, that the gold medal was maybe of less football value than the one from the European Championships, but that's why I consider it above all the others, that we've come this way and also for the Olympic holiday - it's the clear choice for me."

  • "But the rematch was all the nicer. In the winter we welcomed Stuttgart, it was freezing. The coach told us, 'Boys, go play,' he didn't force us into any tactics. We were 1-0 up at half-time and I scored a headed goal in the second half. I remember all the headed goals, they were few. It wasn't so much nice as it was important, it was 2-0, about five minutes after half time, we had 40 minutes for the third away goal. 3-0 was better than 4-1, as Míra Gajdůšek scored in Stuttgart for 4-1. We sensed a huge chance to break the game, we scored the third and fourth goals, the insurance. The match was in such euphoria, people were driving us, nobody will experience such an atmosphere at Dukla again. After the game we gave people our football shoes and shorts, socks, we went to the locker room in just our underpants. It was the best football experience for me, unfortunately in the fourth round it was the worst. We played Hertha Berlin, they were one level worse than Stuttgart. In the first quarter-final at Hertha we played 1-1, we still told ourselves that we left the draw for the spectators to come to Hertha in Prague. And we lost in extra time. That was again my worst football experience, we were three times better than Hertha, but luck, that bitch, laughed at us. So Bundesliga Stuttgart and Hertha was my best and worst football experience."

  • "I clearly remember the match at the conscript selection in Tábor, but the stars from the junior leagues and well-known names were divided between Dukla Prague and Tábor. Our match was the last one, and only the weakest boys from the villages were supposed to play. By coincidence, either the commander from Žatec fell asleep or forgot about it. We played the match, and it was my show—the game ended 11:2, we won, and I scored eight or nine goals. It was terribly easy, they were playing against me - you could almost say clogs. They couldn't even walk, they couldn't go to Dukla. They were trying to go somewhere lower and have a nice war. I showed up in the game and the commander said, 'Vízek, Vízek, Jiskra Nový Bydžov... and you know what? There was a truck from Žatec, he scored eight goals, I'll take a look at him. Throw him on the truck!' There were already a couple of guys there, so I went over to them, I didn't know where I was going. We drove from Tabor to Žatec, where we trained the next day. There were guys from Jablonec, from Teplice - Pepa Fišer, Senický, they had contact with the league. I found myself in the biggest football I've ever been in. During the first training session we played old - young and it rarely happens that the young win against the old hands and I beat them right away, I scored five or six goals. The coach saw that I was a talent, that I could do it, he said. He said, 'This is a player born here!' I didn't know about myself yet, I went into the dark. The championships started and I was the only one who got on from the rookies, we were playing third league. I know I jumped right into the lineup, before that, I had to do chores and peel a bag of potatoes. But when an important match was coming up, it was: 'Vízek, no potatoes for you, so you can get some sleep!' There were perks, training every day—the military service was quite nice. I played excellently there for a year. I was stronger than the others, and I didn't know how it was possible. I had no point of comparison, neither in Bydžov nor at the selection in Žatec. But I was apparently the best. And after a year in Žatec, I received my call-up order to Dukla Prague."

  • "I know that there was a strong hunters' association in Hlušice, and I have to remember, hunting was a really strong passion, the whole village were hunters. I know I used to go hunting with my dad, I'll tell you a story. Everybody had a dog, but I was standing next to my dad instead of the dog, so it's kind of funny. I can tell you I used to go hunting with him, I don't want to say I got physical there, but I was running. When you know what a winged pheasant is - to catch one, it was unbelievable. I ran at a pheasant, how many times I outran a dog as he was zigzagging. I say in jest that I caught the pheasant like my dad's dog on a hunt, I can't forget that. That was game back then! That was a whole different world, today you have one rabbit in the county. We had a cull, there were 500 rabbits. I digress, my dad used to take me hunting as his dog, I learned to run into the corners, that helped me too. They're details and they helped me in football, changes of direction and stuff. It's very funny. I said it once on the talk show that it was pretty important to me, I could zigzag, I could deceive with my body, which I learned from the pheasants."

  • "And that's an interesting question, too. The fact that we were going out, and I, if I ran away, I had an awful lot of money. What I had here was a pittance, and there... I know in West Germany near Stuttgart we had a bus, we bought jeans. Jeans were only in Germany, we bought records, music, it was great. And I know that I was one of the best ones in our country, and they stopped a Mercedes next to me and they said, 'We know you, Mr. Vízek, come on, don't get on the bus anymore, come and sit down, we'll take care of you, we're Eintracht Frankfurt, we'll give you money. We will take care of you, come and emigrate.'"

  • "So it was the Dukla Prague Army Centre for Top Sports. And there we were employed as soldiers, but we were practically only football players. And at that time we had - and I can say this - I know I had a starting salary of ten thousand crowns. But mind you, that was big money at that time. That was on our, I don't know inflation at all, what it would be today, but I know that we were well off with that salary. Plus of course bonuses for games, we were already playing for 600 crowns won at home plus I got into the national team. So I didn't lose financially at all because we played for the national team, there were bonuses there too. So I was just making a living from football. But one thing I have to say about it - I regret that I wasn't born before that time, because nowadays there are millions, hundreds of thousands, and in our country it was hundreds and only thousands. So it's a pity I missed that time. Now the money is in football, not then."

  • "Well, that can be summed up in one word - I had one hobby, and that was really football, because I learned it so well in Hlušice that right when I went to big football, they said I was a huge talent, that I knew how to handle a ball. And that was just by being with the ball every day. So you could say that I'm not that manually skilled or handy, that's my brother, he does everything for me too, he helps me. And you could almost say I can just kick a ball."

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    Praha, 21.10.2021

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    Praha, 01.02.2022

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    Praha, 25.04.2022

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    Stráž nad Nisou, 30.10.2023

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He was dad’s dog, chased rabbits and learned tricks that Europe marveled at.

Ladislav Vízek (left) with the legendary cannon player Josef Bicano in the mid-1980s
Ladislav Vízek (left) with the legendary cannon player Josef Bicano in the mid-1980s
photo: archive of a witness

Ladislav Vízek was born on 22 January 1955 in Chlumec nad Cidlinou. His father was a driver at the District Construction Company Nový Bydžov, his mother worked at the Unified Agricultural Cooperative (JZD). Ladislav Vízek grew up in the village of Hlušice with his younger brother and older sister. He went to primary school in Hlušice, after which he became a toolmaker. He played football for the pupils of Nový Bydžov, in his youth he moved to Spartak Hradec Králové. Due to a difficult commute, he returned to Nový Bydžov, where he played in the adult team of the regional 1. A class. Thanks to Dáša Kocková, the daughter of the chairman of the first league Dukla Prague, who had a cottage near Vízek’s, he was selected for the military squads at the beginning of the war. He caught the attention of the officials of VTK Žatec, where he played for a year in the third league. Then he moved to the first league Dukla Prague, where he quickly made his way into the starting line-up. With Dukla, he won the national championship three times and twice became the Czechoslovak Footballer of the Year. With Dukla he played regularly in European Cups. In the 1978/79 season Dukla reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup, in the 1985/86 season the semi-finals of the Cup Winners’ Cup. In 1977 he made his debut for the Czechoslovak national team, scoring 13 goals in 55 games over nine years. In 1980 he won bronze at the European Championships in Italy and gold at the Summer Olympics in Moscow. In 1982 he represented Czechoslovakia at the World Championship in Spain. In 1986 he transferred from Dukla to the French first league club AC Le Havre. He scored 11 goals in 61 games and earned millions of crowns in two years, which enabled him to buy a profitable restaurant after the fall of the communist regime. He spent the end of his career in Gmünd, Austria. He scored a total of 126 goals in the Czechoslovak and French First Leagues and became a member of the prestigious Cannon Club. After 1989, he was a delegate at first league matches for several years, and in 1996 his son-in-law, Czechoslovak national team player Vladimír Šmicer, became his son-in-law. Apart from football, he played other sports recreationally - tennis, table tennis, hockey, golf and billiards. He also fell in love with the card game of Mariáš and odds betting. He also tried roulette, but lost out and quit. He started writing football commentaries for Deník Sport, a collaboration that continued in 2022, when he lived in Prague. He was then married for the second time and had a nine-year-old daughter with his wife.