Last Sunday we had to say goodbye to Tomas Rosicky. After ten years in which the Czech international had his good, but also his bad moments, it was time for him to leave the club. As a tribute to the little Mozart, we take a look at his Arsenal career.
Almost ten years ago, on the 23rd May, Arsenal confirmed the signing of Czech international Tomas Rosicky from Borussia Dortmund. He played his first game for Arsenal on 8th August in a Champions League qualifier versus Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb. He netted his first for the Gunners in a 2-1 win versus Hamburg. After his first season at the club he was announced Czech footballer of the year, beating his future teammate Petr Cech.
His second season became the standard for the rest of his Arsenal career, he got injured halfway into the season and didn’t feature in any games for the rest of the 2007/08 season. This was also the story for the 2008/09 season, in which he didn’t play a single game for the club due to a hamstring injury. On 12th September 2009, he played his first game since January of the year before. After four shaky years at the club, he decided to sign a new contract declaring he thought the squad was close to doing something special.
The following two seasons were a bright light in the career of Rosicky if you consider his injury record. He played 72 games over these two seasons in which he contributed with his enthusiastic style of play, which some refer to as his ability to orchestrate the midfield, which led to his nickname ‘The little Mozart’. He picked up an injury during the Euros of 2012 in Poland and Ukraine which forced him to watch his club from the stands. He played his first game of the 2012/2013 season on the first of December in a game versus Swansea.
The following season Rosicky and his team managed to do something special, as he said 5 years earlier. He picked up his first silverware with Arsenal as the club won the FA Cup final in a 3-2 thriller versus Hull City. That season also saw Rosicky scoring one of his finest goals in an Arsenal jersey. After one-twos with Wilshere and Giroud, Rosicky broke onto goal, before delicately chipping the ball over the Sunderland ‘keeper.
The season after that, Rosicky won his second piece of silverware with the club by beating Manchester City in the Community Shield. Arsenal finished that season by retaining the FA Cup final after they trashed Aston Villa in a 4-0 win at Wembley. The 2015/16 was the last chapter in Rosicky’s Arsenal story, due to another injury he didn’t play a single game for the club in the season they managed to retain the Community Shield.
After 10 years at Arsenal, he managed to win four pieces of silverware. Although he spent 10 years at the club, we never quite got to see him fulfill his talent. On many occasions we saw flashes, but never enough. We said goodbye to the talented Czech on Sunday, ; grateful for his commitment and loyalty, but still wondering what could have been.
YouTube: Tomas Rosicky – An Arsenal Hero
