Zeman: ‘Could have coached Milan, Inter’

By Football Italia staff

Zdenek Zeman claims he could have Coached “Inter, Milan or Real Madrid” if not for his comments on doping.

The former Roma Coach famously declared that football “should get out of the pharmacies”, and accused Juventus of doping their players in the 1990s.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport cleared the Bianconeri in 2005, ruling that none of the drugs given to players were illegal, and club doctor Riccardo Agricola was later cleared of excessively medicating the players.

No Juve player ever tested positive for a banned substance.

“I paid dearly, even with results on the pitch,” Zeman lamented in an interview with Avvenire.

“The system said ‘we won’t take you’ and my career took a different direction. I could have Coached Milan, Inter or Real Madrid.

“Were they even against me abroad? Of course, because everything starts from an internal ‘system’.

“But for me where I Coach has never been important, at Licata, Foggia or Pescara my ideas of football have the same value as at Real or Barcelona.

“Do I think doping has caused deaths of young players? It’s not that I think it, it’s a proven fact. There have been inquiries, scientific studies like an American one which found 16 per cent of athletes were doped. It’s too many.”

The former Roma and Pescara boss was then asked whether he misses working in Serie A, as he’s now in charge of Swiss side Lugano.

“Television is fine for that. I’m always happy to come home, but I don’t miss anything, also because I don't think Italian football is having its best season.

“In Europe there are at least three or four countries where they’re playing better football.

“We talk badly of our football here [in Switzerland], but it’s wrong to be so modest. There are three teams - Basel, Young Boys and Grasshoppers - who wouldn’t look out of place in Serie A.

“Basel were knocked out of the Champions League, but they have quality, they got through the second round of the Europa League.”

Finally, Zeman was asked why he’s still in football.

“For fun,” the Czech tactician replied.

“I don’t go to the movies since they banned smoking, but on the bench I can stand there with a cigarette for two hours and I still enjoy when my team makes a great move or piece of play.

“That’s all I seek, otherwise with the climate and the people in it I’d have stopped long ago.

“Are the new generations harder to coach? A bit. Thanks to new technology they’re more ‘educated’ but mobile phones and the internet distract them, even on the pitch.

“They’re living football like a job, they have no desire to have fun and improve.

“My family gave me a deep Catholic education, we practiced in Prague under the Communist regime when it was banned, so I can’t stand when players blaspheme on the pitch.

“Here in Switzerland blaspheming is much cheaper than in Italy, but if any of my players do it I call them over and tell them ‘you’re insulting my father and my mother’, so they remember not to do it again.”

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