Milan Baroš (born 28 October 1981) is a former Czech football striker and a product of the Baník Ostrava youth system.[4][3] With Liverpool he won the Champions League in 2005, and at Euro 2004 he was the tournament's top scorer with five goals.[3] With 41 goals he is the second-highest scorer for the Czech national team after Jan Koller.[3] He comes from Vigantice in the Zlín Region.[1][4]*
Club career
He made his top-flight debut for Baník in 1998 against Opava, coming on for Petr Samec.[2] In 2001 he moved to Liverpool, which according to Aktuálně.cz paid about 180 million crowns for him.[3] Together with Vladimír Šmicer he was the first Czech to win the Champions League in a Liverpool shirt.[3] He went on to play for Aston Villa, Portsmouth, Lyon, Galatasaray Istanbul and Antalyaspor, and in the Czech league for Liberec and Mladá Boleslav as well as Baník.[3] In the Czech top division he played 202 matches and scored 56 goals.[3] He last returned to Baník in 2017.[4]
National team
He played 93 matches for the Czech national team and scored 41 goals.[3] At Euro 2004 he reached the semi-finals with Karel Brückner's team.[3][1] In the national side of that time he played up front alongside Jan Koller.[1]
End of career
He announced his retirement at a press conference in Ostrava on 3 July 2020, citing long-term health problems with his Achilles tendons and calf muscle.[3] He played his last professional match for Baník on 5 July 2020 against Plzeň; because of the COVID-19 pandemic only five thousand spectators were allowed.[4][5][1] He then still played for Vigantice in a regional league.[4]
His farewell match took place on 26 September 2026 at the Municipal Stadium in Ostrava-Vítkovice. A team of Baník players and Baroš's former team-mates from abroad faced the national team of the Karel Brückner era, which included Petr Čech, Vladimír Šmicer, Tomáš Rosický and Jan Koller.[1] More than 14,000 spectators watched the match, which the national team won 11–9. Baroš played for both sides in turn and scored four goals.[1][2]
Sources
- ČTK (České noviny) — 26 September 2026
- Moravskoslezský deník — 26 September 2026
- Aktuálně.cz — 3 July 2020
- Moravskoslezský deník — 27 October 2021
- Moravskoslezský deník — 4 July 2020