There is a satisfying story arc accompanying West Ham’s eye-catching transformation this season from heavy-spending underachievers to shrewd European hopefuls. It is a narrative defined by second chances.
David Moyes, seemingly smiling for the first time since his Everton days, is repaying with interest the faith shown in him by a board that let him go almost three years ago but were humble enough to choose him again.
How fitting it is that his two outstanding performers this season, the Czech midfield pair Tomas Soucek and Vladimir Coufal – both signed from Slavia Prague – are also the products of a system that didn’t quite get them at first.
Soucek’s was a career that almost never got started. He presented, in the words of Slavia Prague’s academy director Petr Hurych, a conundrum for his coaches; gangly, somewhat uncoordinated, without a clear sense of his own best position.
“Tomas’s development was very step-by-step,” he says. “He was never the shining star in the youth teams. He actually came to us as a striker, when he came as a 10-year-old from his village.
“We tried him as a central defender too, but he wanted to play in the middle. His favourite players were Yaya Touré and Cesc Fabregas, so that was more where his mind was.”
But Hurych was concerned by the young Soucek’s build. His tall, ungainly frame meant he was neither as athletic nor as mobile as his team-mates. As he moved closer in age to the senior ranks, he was offered on loan to two teams in the Czech second division. Both clubs took a look at him and promptly declined, leaving his future in the game uncertain.
What turned the tide, as is so often the case for young hopefuls, was a twist of good fortune. The manager of another second-tier side, Viktoria Zizkov, took the view – possibly cynical, possibly inspired – that Soucek “wasn’t perfect, but was tall and available for free.” That coach was Jindrich Trpisovsky, who would later give Soucek his first top-flight games on loan at Slovan Liberec and, finally, the captain’s armband in the first team at Slavia.
“He had a brilliant half a year at Slovan under Trpisovsky and he came back to Slavia a much better player,” says Hurych. “Then when Trpisovsky was appointed at Slavia, it was the perfect thing for Tomas. He became like a kind of son to him. He loved him.
“When he signed his first professional contract, I remember his parents saying ‘no, he doesn’t need this much money’. I think it went from ¤1,000 to ¤3,000 or something. They tried to persuade the club to give him less. Money was certainly not his engine.”
That diligence, a steadfast determination to follow “the right path”, is what eventually set the young Soucek apart. It defined his activities away from the pitch, as well as his commitment to his development on it.
Between the ages of 10 and 15, for every training session he made the 100km-each-way journey from his family home in the village of Havlickuv Brod to Slavia’s academy base in Prague. “He has had nothing for free,” says Hurych. “He was never a super talent. It’s his attitude that has made him the player that he is now.”
If Soucek bloomed late, his Hammers team-mate Coufal took a yet more scenic route to the top. Discarded by his first club, first-division Banik Ostrava, as a boy, he took the long way up, first via third-tier Hlucin then up a league to Slezsky Opava. He finally put down roots at Liberec, where he too came under the tutelage of the arch-mentor Trpisovsky, before following him to Slavia in 2018.
Current Opava boss Radoslav Kovac played alongside Coufal for a season at Liberec. He also spent two years at West Ham under Gianfranco Zola and Avram Grant, and is well placed to assess his former team-mate’s impact.
“Cuf was always very hardworking and very demanding of himself,” says Kovac. “He always took an hour before and an hour after training. He was a great character, always working hard. He had to wait for his chance at Liberec, but when he played he never spared a step. He made brutal progress.
“He was always hugely bitten by the game and was very demanding of himself. He never wanted to lose. Typologically, Cuf is an ideal wing-back.”
The Czech pair have helped West Ham to effect an astonishing transformation under Moyes. They have epitomised a shift in transfer policy away from the high-profile, high mark-up buys that characterised the reign of Manuel Pellegrini, towards a more targeted recruitment policy.
Felipe Anderson and Sebastien Haller, at £36m and £45m respectively, were the two most expensive mistakes of a transfer campaign now exposed for its profligacy, and the two signings from Slavia have demonstrated the value still available in the market for those who know how and where to look. Whilst Anderson and Haller have been moved on, Soucek and Coufal have become indispensable to the Hammers’ rise.
“Cuf and Tomas fit in exactly at the club,” says Kovac. “West Ham went the way of having a lot of technical players like Anderson or [Manuel] Lanzini, but it’s not possible to play without warriors.
“The club has caught up with hard-working players who are suitable for duels. They have been unbelievable signings.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3duCOr2
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