Pavel Horváth

Pavel Horváth

Horváth in 2012
Personal information
Date of birth	22 April 1975
Place of birth	Prague, Czechoslovakia
Height	1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Playing position	Midfielder
Club information
Current team	Retired
Youth career
1980–1981	TJ Břevnov
1981–1994	Sparta Prague
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1993	Sparta Prague	1	(0)
1994–1996	Jablonec 97	51	(8)
1996–2000	Slavia Prague	105	(27)
2000–2001	Sporting CP	19	(1)
2001	Galatasaray	3	(0)
2002–2004	Teplice	64	(6)
2004–2006	Vissel Kobe	60	(12)
2006–2008	Sparta Prague	48	(2)
2008–2015	Viktoria Plzeň	170	(35)
Total		521	(91)
National team
1995–1997	Czech Republic U21	10	(1)
1999–2002	Czech Republic	19	(0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Pavel Horváth (Czech pronunciation: [ˈpavɛl ˈɦorvaːt]; born 22 April 1975) is a Czech retired footballer who played as a midfielder.

He spent the better part of his 22-year professional career with Slavia Prague (four years), Teplice (three) and Viktoria Plzeň (seven), amassing Czech First League totals of 435 games and 78 goals during 19 seasons. He also competed professionally in Portugal, Turkey and Japan.

Horvath was a Czech international for three years.

Club career

After making his professional debut with AC Sparta Prague, Prague-born Horváth moved to lowly FK Jablonec in search of more opportunities, which led to a return to the capital with SK Slavia, scoring 27 goals in the league alone in four seasons, although the club only managed to win two national cups during that timeframe.

Horváth's exploits with Slavia earned him a transfer to Sporting Clube de Portugal, but he failed to win a place in the starting XI. Sold in January 2002 to Galatasaray S.K. alongside teammate Mbo Mpenza, he also appeared very rarely, which prompted a return home before 2001–02 was over, with FK Teplice, where he conquered the domestic cup in his first full campaign.^[1]

After three years in Japan Horváth moved back to Sparta for two more seasons, where he won the national championship for the first time in 2007, adding the 2007 and 2008 Czech Cups. Subsequently, aged 33, he signed for FC Viktoria Plzeň,^[2] netting eight times during the 2008–09 season as the club finished in eighth place.

Horváth won the domestic cup for the sixth time with his fourth different team, as he captained Viktoria to its first title in the competition in 2010.^[1] He was also named the Personality of the League at the Czech Footballer of the Year awards in that year.

Thirty-five-year-old Horváth continued to produce in the 2010–11 season, scoring eight goals in 26 games as Plzeň was crowned league champion the first time in its history.

Controversy

In September 2007, Horváth was fined 200,000 Czech koruna for apparently performing the Nazi salute during Sparta's league match against FK Viktoria Žižkov. He apologized for the incident, and said that his gesture was misinterpreted, claiming he was only trying to calm down his team's rowdies.^[3]

International career

Horváth made his debut for the Czech Republic on 9 February 1999 in a 1–0 friendly win in Belgium, going on to amass 19 caps in three years and being selected for UEFA Euro 2000, where he did not play.

His international career was vastly barred by the talent of fellow midfielders Patrik Berger, Pavel Nedvěd and Vladimír Šmicer.^[4]

Statistics

Club

As of 25 May 2014^[5][6]

Club	Season	League		Cup		Europe		Other[lower-alpha 1]		Total
		Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
Sparta Prague	1993–94	1	0	0	0	–		–		1	0
	Total	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
Jablonec	1993–94	4	0	0	0	–		–		4	0
	1994–95	26	5	0	0	–		–		26	5
	1995–96	20	3	0	0	–		–		20	3
	1996–97	1	0	0	0	–		–		1	0
	Total	51	8	0	0	0	0	0	0	51	8
Slavia Prague	1996–97	25	5	0	0	4	1	–		29	6
	1997–98	25	5	0	0	4	0	–		29	5
	1998–99	29	7	1	1	3	0	–		33	8
	1999–00	26	10	0	0	9	1	–		35	11
	Total	105	27	1	1	20	2	0	0	126	30
Sporting CP	2000–01	16	1	2	0	4	0	3	0	25	1
	2001–02	3	0	0	0	0	0	–		3	0
	Total	19	1	2	0	4	0	3	0	28	1
Galatasaray	2001–02	3	0	–		–		–		3	0
	Total	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0
Teplice	2001–02	17	1	0	0	–		–		17	1
	2002–03	25	2	0	0	2	2	–		27	4
	2003–04	22	3	0	0	4	1	–		26	4
	Total	64	6	0	0	6	3	0	0	70	9
Vissel Kobe	2004	14	6	–		–		–		14	6
	2005	24	3	–		–		–		24	3
	2006	22	3	–		–		–		22	3
	Total	60	12	0	0	0	0	0	0	60	12
Sparta Prague	2006–07	20	2	1	1	–		–		21	3
	2007–08	28	0	4	0	7	0	–		39	0
	Total	48	2	5	1	7	0	0	0	60	3
Viktoria Plzeň	2008–09	27	8	0	0	–		–		27	8
	2009–10	28	5	1	0	–		–		29	5
	2010–11	26	8	4	2	2	0	1	0	33	10
	2011–12	29	5	1	0	13	1	0	0	43	6
	2012–13	28	4	2	0	15	5	–		45	9
	2013–14	25	4	6	0	15	3	0	0	46	7
	2014–15	7	1	3	0	2	0	1	0	13	1
	Total	170	35	17	2	47	9	2	0	236	46
Career Total		521	91	24	4	84	14	5	0	634	109

Notes

1. Other tournaments include the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira and the Czech Supercup.

National team

^[7]

Czech Republic
Year	Apps	Goals
1999	6	0
2000	8	0
2001	2	0
2002	3	0
Total	19	0

Honours

Club

Slavia Prague

• Czech Cup: 1996–97, 1998–99

Teplice

• Czech Cup: 2002–03

Sparta Prague

• Czech First League: 2006–07
• Czech Cup: 2006–07, 2007–08

Viktoria Plzeň

• Czech First League: 2010–11, 2012–13, 2014–15
• Czech Cup: 2009–10
• Czech Supercup: 2011

Sporting

• Primeira Liga: 2001–02

References

1. "Minule konflikt, teď zase slavil naplno. Horváth vyhrál pohár už pošesté" (in Czech). Idnes. 19 May 2010.
2. "Bude to dobrý, říkali. A nabídli mě Plzni, vzpomíná už s úsměvem Horváth" (in Czech). Idnes. 24 December 2008. Retrieved 3 July 2011.
3. Sparta Prague's Horvath fined for Nazi gesture; Reuters, 6 September 2007
4. Euro 2000 profile; at BBC
5. "P. Horváth". Soccerway. Retrieved 2 October 2015.
6. "Pavel Horvath". Footballdatabase. Retrieved 2 October 2015.
7. "Pavel Horváth". European Football. Retrieved 2 October 2015.

External links

• Viktoria Plzeň official profile (Czech)
• Pavel Horváth international stats at the Football Association of the Czech Republic website (Czech)
  
• Idnes profile (Czech)
• Pavel Horváth profile at ForaDeJogo
  
• Pavel Horváth at National-Football-Teams.com