Václav Pilát

Václav Pilát was born on May 6, 1888, in Prague, Austria-Hungary. The creator of the "Czech way," which involves a through ball between two defenders, he is considered one of the best passers of his era. He began his career in 1905 with Staroměstská Olympia, a team he played with for three years before joining the club that would make him famous, Sparta Prague.

In 1911, he participated in the UIAFA European Football Tournament, held in Roubaix, France, where he won his first trophy with Bohemia. Unfortunately, the player's career was severely impacted by the First World War, which broke out when he was only 26 years old.

During the war, the Sparta Prague team did not play a single match, and many players were sent to the battlefront, including Pilát, who was sent to the Eastern Front. During a battle against the Russian army, the player was seriously injured and left alone on the field. Lying on the ground, he was eventually saved by Corporal Štěpanovský, a football referee at the time, who recognized the player and took him to the infirmary.

Transferred to Prague in critical condition, the player underwent seven surgeries at Karlín Hospital. For six weeks, he was artificially fed with a spinal cord destroyed by the battle. One day, a Prague newspaper announced the player's death, a mistake that led many people to mourn the player outside the hospital. It was eventually learned that it had been a mistake: the player had been moved to a different room, and the patient who had taken his place had died.

Over the months, Václav Pilát's health improved, but the medical report was that he was forbidden to run or move quickly. The military commission even went so far as to classify the young man as disabled. During the war, he worked in a factory. One day, he encountered a local team training, and the player decided to slowly return to football.

Deciding to continue training with the team, he was then scheduled to play a derby match against Olympia Plzeň. Unsure of his physical condition and his ability to last a full match again, he eventually scored a hat-trick and secured victory for his team. He remained with this team until 1918, when Sparta Prague announced they were rebuilding their team. This would mark the beginning of the club's golden age.

Václav Pilát spent his entire career as a center forward, but he was more than just a finisher and an excellent passer; he was the creator of his team's play, the anchor of the attack. With exceptional vision, he tended to send long balls to his team's wingers and led the offensive play like the team's playmaker.

A star of the 1920 Czechoslovakia Olympic team, he led his team to a silver medal at the age of 32. Leading the attack for Sparta Prague in the early 1920s, he was part of the famous Iron Sparta, a team that did not lose a single match between 1921 and 1923 in the national championship. He finally joined ČAFC Vinohrady in 1924, to replace him at Sparta Prague, another legend and one of the best players of his era was about to arrive, Alfréd Schaffer, the Hungarian striker with many exploits. Despite a very good start, the Hungarian would completely lose his level as the matches went by, and the replacement for the Czech legend would not arrive at the club until 1930 in the person of Raymond Braine.

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