A short stay at St James’ – but one never to be forgotten
DAVID ROSEHNAL LOOKS BACK AT STINT
IT might be a little hard to believe now, but there was a time when Paris Saint-Germain’s player of the year jumped at the chance to join Newcastle United.
David Rozehnal may not necessarily have been a headline-grabbing arrival, but the Magpies beat Borussia Dortmund and Sevilla to the centre-back’s signature in 2007.
Although Sevilla were an established force at the time, this was a very different era: PSG were not yet owned by the wealthy Qatari owners who later rocked the football world by signing Neymar and Kylian Mbappe; Dortmund were about to embark on their worst campaign in 20 years; and Newcastle had played in Europe in 10 of the previous 11 seasons before being taken over by Mike Ashley that summer.
Such was Newcastle’s standing at the time, Rozehnal felt the club’s training ground was of a better standard to what he had been used at Camp des Loges.
“Newcastle were one of the strongest and sharpest clubs in negotiations,” Rozehnal told The Chronicle. “It was up to us to decide.
It was one of the best leagues in the world and still is. For me, it was an easy decision.
“My dream competition was the Spanish league, but it was the Premier League and it was a big club with a big history. All the people around me said, ‘You have to go! You have to go!’
“My first impression when I got there was, ‘Wow,’ especially when I came to the training ground. It was another level from what I saw in Sigma Olomouc in the Czech Republic, where I grew up, and then at Club Brugge and Paris Saint-Germain, who were among the biggest teams in their competitions.
“You could not compare the facilities with Newcastle’s. Everything changed and I was in a dream.”
Newcastle had been on the lookout for a n e w defender after the club decided against handing Titus Bramble and Craig Moore new deals, and Rozehnal was on Sam Allardyce’s radar for some time. Allardyce had not long been appointed as the club’s new manager and the Magpies’ boss was initially staying in the same hotel as Rozehnal.
Rozehnal never forgot how Allardyce helped him to find a house and the Czech Republic international recognised how having a manager who ‘trusts you from the beginning’ made settling in ‘much easier.’ Ultimately, however, it was up to Rozehnal to prove that he ‘had some skills to play there’ following his £2.9m move to St James’ Park. “To be honest, for me, it was a little bit difficult to find a way to play in the Premier League because it was sometimes a little bit like you were fighting to play football and I was always the player who preferred to *play* football,” he said. “Even in the hard situations, I wanted to play football, to construct the action to score the goal, and, at this time, the Premier League was not so technical like it is now.
“Of course, some coaches wanted to play simple football and to fight and to play high. It was a little bit difficult and strange for me, but you have to change.
“You cannot play like you want to if you are playing for a big club in the Premier League under a big manager like Sam Allardyce.”
Allardyce wanted his players to always play the first pass forward and the Newcastle manager constantly warned his defenders about the importance of not giving the ball away in their own half.
Rather than playing out, taking risks or picking out a team-mate, Allardyce was keen on Newcastle getting the ball into the corner and squeezing up behind, which was different to what Rozehnal had been used to.
Newcastle made a decent start under Allardyce – claiming 17 points from the opening nine fixtures of the campaign – but he would win just two further games before Ashley sacked him in January 2008.
Allardyce had only been at the club for eight months, but was keen on personally saying goodbye to his players and told them he was ‘sorry
David Rozehnal in action for Paris Saint-Germain
it didn’t work out’ and how he would have ‘loved to have had more time.’
“It shows you that the coach was strong,” Rozehnal said. “I remember he was talking to us. ‘OK, never mind, they fired me but keep going.’ All these positive things.
“This shows me that Sam Allardyce is a big manager. He had a big heart for football and even when they fired him, he was strong enough to come in front of us and say goodbye. I was happy he was able to do that.”
Having never been Ashley’s choice, Allardyce maintains that Newcastle was the right club at the wrong time. Just as Allardyce’s circumstances effectively changed when Ashley bought the club, so too did Rozehnal’s when Kevin Keegan returned for his second coming midway through the campaign.
Rozehnal may have played in all of Keegan’s first three games in charge – admittedly in a range of positions – but the defender joined Lazio on loan just a few weeks after the Newcastle legend’s return.
“I was a young player at the time and I felt a little bit like my situation changed when Kevin came,” he said.
“He started to give other players a chance. I wanted to play each game and that’s why I had the feeling that’s it’s time to move somewhere else where I can play.
He started using me in different positions. Even if I liked to play every game in different positions, I don’t care. I gave the maximum.
“But, of course, I was a player who was first of all a central defender and then, maybe, a defensive midfielder. I started to play right-back, left-back and in midfield...I didn’t feel he was counting on me. From the first day, I felt that Sam Allardyce was counting on me; with Kevin Keegan, I didn’t have this feeling. I didn’t have time to know him and to form a relationship with him.”
Lazio signed Rozehnal on a permanent basis that summer and the centre-back went on to have spells at Hamburg, Lille and KV Oostende before retiring in 2018.
While Rozehnal, now 40, acknowledges he did not spend ‘a long time’ on Tyneside, it was still a ‘nice part’ of his career.
“I’ll never forget it,” he added. “Once the supporters are back, I’d like to come back to see one of the games, see the stadium and the training ground, and feel the nostalgia. Our son, Luka, was born there and this is also something special that we will never forget.”