Breaking down every touch the legendary Chelsea goalkeeper made in his return to football with the developmental side as they took on Tottenham’s U23s.
Who would have thought that Kingston Upon Thames, a suburban area of west London, would see the return of one of the all-time great keepers in 2020. This, however, was the case as Chelsea’s own Petr Cech donned his gloves and magic hat for the first time in 18 months at Kingsmeadow stadium last Monday.
Much was made of the news in October that the Blues’ current technical and performance director had been added to the Premier League squad as a non-contract player. Two months later, he is starting in goal for Chelsea’s Development Team in a Premier League 2 home game versus Tottenham. Maybe it should not have been considered such an unlikely story though. Before his addition to the squad, Cech had been keeping himself fit by taking to the ice as a Hockey goaltender with South London team, Guildford Phoenix.
Regardless, we decided to track Cech’s return to football and take a look at each one of his touches throughout the match:
1. Pre-match
Since his addition, a stream of footage through Chelsea’s social media platforms has been forthcoming, showing Cech involved in goalkeeper training. Despite that, it was still a surprise when it was announced that he would indeed be starting. Many pieces needed to fall into place to make this a reality. Cech is the fifth-string goalkeeper on the senior team’s depth chart, only to be used as a last resort if there were mass injuries or a COVID-19 outbreak amongst the goalkeeping contingent. His start against Tottenham’s U23s was the culmination of several fixtures occurring around the same time across men’s teams at three levels.
Lucas Bergstrom, who regularly appears in goal for both the Development Squad and Under-18s, was made unavailable as he featured for the U18s in a 2-1 defeat to Fulham the day before the Spurs U23 game. The club did not want him playing twice in a little over 48 hours, so he was ruled out. Karlo Ziger on the other hand, who would usually have played in this instance, had been a part of the first team as he was on the bench for the Champions League tie with Krasnodar and was not yet permitted to join up with the Development Squad again before adhering to Coronavirus bubble regulations for each individual squad.
With the context in place, this is how the former No. 1 fared in his return between the posts.