Pavel "Furia Ceca" Nedvěd

Pavel Nedvěd was one of the best midfielders in Europe during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Nedved is one of the all time great Czech Republic players.

Born 30 August 1972 in the town of Cheb, Pavel Nedvěd took up soccer early on and become a football fanatic ever since he was 5 years old. In 1977, Nedved began playing for his home team, Tatran Skalna. He then moved on to Rudá Hvězda Cheb in 1985, playing just one season there, before playing for 5 years with Skoda Plzen. In 1990, Nedved initially signed for Dukla Prague, but played only one season with the club and then joined with the more prestigious Sparta Prague. During his 4 seasons with Sparta, he helped the team won 3 titles and a Cup.

In 1996, Pavel Nedvěd transferred from Sparta Prague to an Italian Serie A giant, Lazio. He rapidly became an integral part of the Lazio side. Nedved has helped Lazio won Coppa Italia (1998 and 2000), Supercoppa Italianas in 1998 as well as 2000, won the last ever UEFA Cup Winners' Cup 1999, UEFA Super Cup 1999, and Italian Serie A title in 2000. Totally Pavel Nedvěd has scored 54 goals in 204 matches with Lazio.

After spent 5 seasons with Lazio, in 2001 Pavel Nedvěd moved to Juventus in a deal worth €41 million. Replacing Zinedine Zidane as a playmaker, he helped Juventus to win Italian Serie A in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006. But Italian football authorities stripped Juventus off their last two titles over Calciopoli scandal, and demoted them to Serie B. Despite a lot of clubs persuade to use his service but he stick with Juventus and helped it to win Serie B and earn promotion back to Serie A. Nedved has played 338 matches and scored 65 goals for Juventus. He also won two Supercoppa Italianas with Juventus.  

Pavel Nedvěd who was nicknamed Furia Ceca by Juventus fans, retired in 2009 after 19 years as a professional. He played 664 club games, scoring 146 goals, and was capped 91 times for the Czech Republic, scoring 18 times. Nedved received the prestigious Ballon d'Or in 2003 and the 2nd Golden Foot award in 2004. 

Pavel Nedvěd Pictures and Wallpapers

Edwin van der Sar

Edwin van der Sar  (born October 29, 1970) is a Dutch footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for English club Manchester United. He is the most capped player in the Netherlands national football team's history.

Van der Sar started his senior career at Ajax and remained there for nine years before moving to Italian club Juventus and then to England, first to Fulham and then to Manchester United. He is one of the few footballers to have won the UEFA Champions League with two different teams, having won it with Ajax in 1995 and Manchester United in 2008, the latter where he was named UEFA Man of the match; he also won the UEFA Cup with Ajax in 1992. Van der Sar was named Best European Goalkeeper in 1995 and 2009, spanning the 14-year period between his first and second Champions league victories.

In 2008-09, he went 1,311 minutes without conceding in the league - setting a new single-season world record. With a total of 21 clean sheets he won the Best European Goalkeeper award from UEFA and sealed his reputation as one of the best in the world. Ahead of the 2009-10 season many touted Ben Foster as a permanent replacement for Van der Sar but both he and Thomas Kuszczak failed to depose the Dutchman, who remains Ferguson's No.1. 

Van der Sar was included in the Netherlands's 1994 World Cup squad but did not play. He had to wait until 7 June 1995 for his international debut, against Belarus. He was in goal for three successive eliminations from major competitions by penalties: Euro 96, France 98 and Euro 2000. The Netherlands failed to qualify for the 2002 World Cup after failing to compete with Portugal and the Republic of Ireland and so during all of his career with the Netherlands, he had missed one tournament. Van der Sar has represented the Dutch national team 130 times, which makes him the country's most capped player. This puts him in the top thirty most capped players of all time. [source : Edwin van der Sar]

Van der Sar Pictures and Wallpapers

Zinedine "Zizou" Zidane : The Football Maestro

Zinedine Yazid Zidane  was born 23 June 1972 in Marseille to Smaïl and Malika, both Algerians of Kabyle descent. His parents emigrated to Paris from Algeria in 1953 from the village of Aguemone in the Kabylie region of Algeria. They moved to Marseille a few years later, where Zidane was born. Zidane describes himself as a practicing Muslim.

Zidane joined the junior team of US Saint-Henri, a local club in the La Castellane district of Marseille. At the age of 14, he participated in the first-year junior selection for the league championship, where he caught the attention of AS Cannes scout Jean Varraud. He went to Cannes for a six-week stay, but ended up remaining at the club for four years to play at the professional level. Zidane played his first Ligue 1 match at seventeen, and scored his first goal on 8 February 1991, for which he received a car as a gift from the team president. His first season with Cannes culminated in a UEFA Cup berth.

Zidane was transferred to Girondins de Bordeaux in the 1992–93 season, winning the 1995 Intertoto Cup and finishing runner-up in the 1995–96 UEFA Cup in four years with the club. He played a set of midfield combinations with Bixente Lizarazu and Christophe Dugarry, which would become the trademark of both Bordeaux and the 1998 French national team. In 1995, Blackburn Rovers coach Ray Harford had expressed interest in signing both Zidane and Dugarry, to which team owner Jack Walker reportedly replied, "Why do you want to sign Zidane when we have Tim Sherwood?."

In 1996, Zidane moved to Champions League winners Juventus for a fee of £3.2 million and won the 1996–97 Scudetto and the Intercontinental Cup, but lost the 1997 UEFA Champions League final 3–1 to Borussia Dortmund. He netted seven goals in 32 matches to help Juventus retain the Scudetto the next season and make their third consecutive UEFA Champions League final appearance, losing 1-0 to Real Madrid which would be his next destination. Juventus were runners-up in 2000–01, but were eliminated in the group stage of the Champions League, during which Zidane was sent off for headbutting Hamburger SV player Jochen Kientz.

In 2001, Zidane joined Real Madrid for a then world record fee of 150 billion Italian lire (about €70.5 million) and signed a four-year contract. He scored a famous match-winning goal, a volley hit with his weaker foot, in Madrid's 2-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen in the 2002 UEFA Champions League Final completing this personal quadruple. The next season, Zidane helped Real Madrid to win the Spanish league title and was named the FIFA World Player of the Year for the third time. In 2004, fans voted him as the best European footballer of the previous 50 years in UEFA's fiftieth-anniversary Golden Jubilee Poll.

Despite scoring his first-ever hat-trick in a 4-2 win over Sevilla, Zidane's final season of club football ended trophyless. On 7 May 2006, Zidane, who had announced his plans to retire after the 2006 World Cup, played his last home match and scored in a 3-3 draw with Villarreal CF. The squad wore commemorative jerseys with ZIDANE 2001–2006 below the club logo. [source : Zidane]

Zinedine Zidane Pictures and Wallpapers