Robert Vittek, once courted by the great and good of Europe has issued a timely reminder at South Africa 2010 that he's still around.
While the gaze of Europe's leading clubs watching Slovakia at their first world cup has been clearly trained on Napoli's Marek Hamsik, it is Vittek who has come to the fore. Scoring Slovakia's first ever goal at a World Cup finals in their opening 1-1 draw with New Zealand, Vittek repeated the trick, and then again, in the 3-2 victory over defending champions Italy last week.
While most of us look and wonder whether we should indeed have had Vittek in our respective fantasy football sides, there will still have been plenty of coaches and managers across Europe tuned in to Vittek's exploits.
But it certainly isn't the first time that Vittek has caught the eye. He moved from hometown club Slovan Bratislava to Nuremberg in 2003, at a time when when the German side were playing outside of the top division. Having averaged almost a goal every game by the age of 21 with Bratislava, Vittek was starting to attract attention. While others stalled, Nuremberg pounced.
Helping his team gain promotion back to the Bundesliga's top division in 2004, Vittek was an in and out sort of player, struggling to adapt to top flight football. Some reasonable appearances came and went for the muscular forward but by the start of 2006 everything fell into place.
If only Robert could reach the ball.......
Just after the Bundesliga's winter break, Vittek netted an astounding 17 goals in the last 15 games of the season for Nuremberg, including 3 separate hat-tricks. This little display got Vittek noticed and bids from other clubs prevailed. Courted by several Bundesliga sides, and with others from outside of Germany's borders making ultimately fruitless enquiries, Vittek remained at Nuremberg. And stagnated.
Hampered by a severe loss of form following a couple of minor niggles, Vittek eventually moved on to French club Lille in 2008, with little success, and then onto Turkish side Ankaragucu, his current home.
Tucked away in Turkey, Vittek has shown signs of past glories, but his current World Cup form might just get the forward another chance in a big league.
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