By the time this goes online, Petr Cech will almost certainly have made his competitive debut for the club against his old team Chelsea in the Community Shield. He may even have won his first piece of silverware for Arsenal that actually goes down in the official record books. At that time, however, I will be on holiday, sitting in the Portuguese sun while secretly wishing I was in London watching what is essentially a glorified pre-season match. So I am writing this now, and at the time of writing, we are still yet to see much of our new goalkeeper. We have witnessed his not-particularly-busy outing in Singapore – I went into a bit more detail about that here and his solid appearance in the Emirates Cup. Sure, the first impressions are good, but Yaya Sanogo scored four goals in one game against Benfica in last year’s Emirates Cup. Pre-season is not always a reliable indicator of how things are going to be when it gets competitive.
So until we see him in a few competitive games, we are not going to really know exactly how Cech is going to fit in at Arsenal. The only thing I’ve found out about him since his move that we can rely upon to continue is the fact that he looks very different with and without his hat on – it’s amazing the impact a piece of headgear can make. Essentially, Cech’s greatest achievement at the club so far is to lend some believability to the whole nobody-recognising-Clark-Kent-as-Superman-simply-because-he-put-some-glasses-on thing. Other than that, we can’t make any reliable judgements.
Because of that, let’s have a look back. Unlike most players Arsenal sign, Cech has had a long and very successful career – he has won 15 club trophies (all at Chelsea) and one international trophy: the 2002 u21 European Championships. He is the only player in the Arsenal squad to have won the UEFA Champions League.
Chelsea have only ever won the Premier League/first division title once without Cech in the squad. As well as this huge collection of medals, he has also won *twenty-nine* individual awards – including three Premier League Golden Gloves, three UEFA Best Goalkeeper awards and made two appearances in the PFA Team of the Year. Until Edwin van der Sar broke it in 2009, Cech had held the record for the most minutes gone without conceding in the Premier League. He won the European u21 Championships Golden Player in 2002, just after moving from Sparta Prague to Rennes – where he won the award for the Best Goalkeeper in the French League in 2004.
It is fair to say that Cech has a lot to look back on and be proud of.
He has been one of the best goalkeepers in the world for a very long time – even now, at 33, only a handful can legitimately, confidently claim to be better than him. As a Twitter parody of Arsene Wenger must surely have said at some point, Cech has played at the top top level for 11 years. He has proved himself time and again – not only from open play, but also saving crucial penalties such as those against Bayern Munich, both in normal time and in the shoot-out, to win the Champions League in 2012. He dived the right way every single time.
This experience of his, a great history in the game, is part of what makes Cech so formidable. His size (at 6’5), ability to command his penalty area, confidence and agility are the other key components. When Cech dives he does look a little like a meerkat that’s had a helmet strapped on and been fired out of a cannon, but there’s also something graceful about it, like the meerkat discovering a long lost ability to fly during its use as ammunition. He’s in control, knows exactly what he’s doing, where he’s going and why. It’s a nice change to have that from an Arsenal goalkeeper.
Cech is also willing and able to take control as soon as the ball comes anywhere near his territory, and does so solidly, without a hint of panic or a suggestion he may mess it up. For the defence, knowing that you have a goalkeeper behind you that is going to do this if necessary only helps to settle any nerves, relax your play, and prevent mistakes – a goalkeeper of Cech’s experience is also incredibly useful when it comes to organisation. His presence extends beyond simply goalkeeping, and improves the entire team’s defensive abilities.
Some of this perhaps explains why Chelsea captain John Terry was so unhappy about Cech’s move, and why he claimed that the goalkeeper would “save [Arsenal] 12 or 15 points a season”. Cech’s impact, if we can judge from the rest of his career, is going to go far beyond simply an improvement in the goalkeeper position. And if history’s anything to go on, we should be set to see a few more trophies added to both his and Arsenal’s collection.
That or he’ll get injured like a true Arsenal player, and we’ll be stuck with Ospina again.
