When we spoke to each other before Christmas, you exuded determination: “I will go to the preparation as much as possible.” But in the end, everything was completely different, you see?
I was convinced that I would enter training and fight for a chance. However, between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, I began to suspect that this would probably not be the case.
What happened?
The club said that we should find a compromise. My wife and brother and I got on a plane and in three days we had our apartment packed. I went to America thinking that it wasn’t done yet, but we reached an agreement with the club at the beginning of January.
Let’s add that New England applied a buyout in your case, i.e. a mechanism that can only be used once per season. This is an early termination of the contract, thanks to which the club can more easily fit into the salary cap.
Honestly, I kind of expected it to be headed that way. In two and a half months, I didn’t catch even once, and most of the time I wasn’t even nominated. It’s not pleasant, but given the zero workload, I have a clear conscience: I wasn’t the one who messed it up.
I would say that the recent arrival of Slovakian goalkeeper Henrich Rabas didn’t help you either. Do you see it that way too?
When the club took him, he probably already knew that it would end up like this with me. In Major League Soccer, in addition to salary caps, there are precisely given quotas for foreigners. It all came together.
At the same time, you hoped that the arrival of new coach Caleb Porter could help you. Did he get back to you?
Unfortunately, I never spoke to him. I thought he might give me space, but he left it completely up to the goalkeeping coach.
You didn’t sit down with the Englishman Kevin Hitchcock in the fall: he often didn’t even send you to the training sessions of players who weren’t in the match nomination.
Well, exactly. He had his opinion about me and he didn’t change it over the holidays. (smiles) I was sorry for the zero communication, but nothing can be done. I move on.
And how did your family experience moving from America?
The girls were not enthusiastic. They understand it from a football point of view, but it was difficult for them to leave. When we told our older daughter that she would not be going back to school in Boston, she cried. She liked it there and made a lot of friends. Even the woman liked it in America. Now we’ll see where it takes us.
In Wednesday’s Sport.cz poll, two-thirds of the voters guessed that after Switzerland, Spain, Greece, England and the USA, you will go abroad on another holiday. What do you think?
If people say so, so be it. (laughs) At this point, I really don’t know what’s coming.
Tomáš Vaclík is a Spartan boy, he will always have the door open. But now we are satisfied with the goalkeeper trio, says Tomáš RosickýVideo: Sport.cz
What would you prefer? Return to the Czech Republic or abroad again?
I have only one ambition: after a weak six months, I would like to find a place where they will be happy that I am there. And where I will be happy to be able to work there and spend time with the locals. It would be nice to come back to an environment where everything works. So far it has worked out for me every time, the first time I encountered it was in America.
Is it true that České Budějovice and their sports manager at the time, Jan Podroužek, called before Christmas?
We spoke on the phone twice. I already knew Honza as a journalist, once we did my very first interview together in Sparta. We called just after the end of the season in America, when I still didn’t know that I could end up there. Honza asked how I was doing, we didn’t agree on anything.
And even now Dynamo is probably not a current option, is it?
Certainly not. I don’t even know what the situation is there and who works there. I just heard that it is leading to a change of owner in Budějovice.
There was one change last week in Strahov: the new coach of the national team is Ivan Hašek. Have you talked to him yet?
Not yet. I myself feel that first of all I need a stable job, and only then can I think about a baby boy. I have to catch regularly and then I could hopefully be one of the options for the EURO. Maybe the experience from the summer will help me now, I didn’t make an appointment in America until the end of August. I don’t panic and I have my team of people with whom I train in Prague. I believe that I will be calmer than in the summer, but at the same time I would not like the wait for a new club to be so long.