Tomáš Poštulka (born 2 February 1974) is a Czech former professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

er who played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...

. He is one of the most successful Czech goalkeepers – and together with

Petr Čech Petr Čech (; born 20 May 1982) is a Czech former professional Association football, footballer who played as a Goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper and current ice hockey player who plays as a goaltender for Oxford City Stars. He has ...

and

Jaromír Blažek Jaromír Blažek (; born 29 December 1972) is a Czech former professional football goalkeeper. Apart from one season in Germany, he has spent his entire professional career in the Czech Republic. Blažek has also been called up as a reserve goal ...

the most seasoned Czech goalkeeper in European Cups (Champions League and UEFA Cup). Under

Jozef Chovanec Jozef Chovanec (born 7 March 1960) is a former professional footballer and manager. He took part in two major tournaments: the 1990 FIFA World Cup as a player for Czechoslovakia and UEFA Euro 2000 as manager of the Czech Republic. Career As a fo ...

he was the #1 goalkeeper in the Czech National Team. Besides Czech Republic, he has played in Costa Rica.

Club career

Poštulka was born in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

. He began his career in 1982 coming to

Sparta Prague Athletic Club Sparta Praha (), commonly known as Sparta Prague and Sparta Praha, is a professional football club based in Prague. It is the most successful club in the Czech Republic and one of the most successful in central Europe, winning t ...

and playing in all kind junior Czech national teams (U-18, U-21,...). In 1991, he spent one year in

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

playing 2 league games for Carmelita(1st Costa Rican league). After his comeback he spent some time in Dukla Prague and FK Drnovice (both 1st Czech league). In 1995, he moved to Hradec Kralove where he achieved his first bigger success winning the

Czech Cup The Czech Cup (), officially known as the MOL Cup for sponsorship reasons, is the major men's football cup competition in the Czech Republic. It is organised by the Czech Football Association. The Czech Cup was first held in 1961. The winner ...

. From these times came his nickname the "penalties wizard" because of his stats – having saved every second

penalty Penalty, The Penalty, Penalization, Penalisation, Penalize or Penalise may refer to: Sports * Foul (sports) ** Penalty (golf) ** Penalty (gridiron football) ** Penalty (ice hockey) ** Penalty (rugby) ** Penalty (rugby union) ** Penalty kick (assoc ...

Sparta Prague

In January 1997 Poštulka returned to

, with the club subsequently winning the

Czech First League The Czech First League () also known as the Chance Liga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in the Czech Republic and the highest level of the Czech Republic football league system. Seasons typically run from A ...

5 times in a row. Sparta played the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

many times and the

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

at the time and "Tomas" got his first invitation to the Czech National Team. He played 7 matches of qualification (all wins) for the

EURO 2000 The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship, also known as Euro 2000, was the 11th UEFA European Championship, a football tournament held every four years and organised by UEFA, the sport's governing body in Europe. The finals tournament was ...

tournament and won the Japan

Kirin Cup The is an association football tournament organised in Japan by the Kirin Brewery Company. The host, Japan national football team, Japan, is a participant in every edition. The tournament was founded in 1978 then known as Japan Cup (Internatio ...

with the prize for best goalkeeper.

FK Teplice

In 2001 the ambitious team

FK Teplice FK Teplice is a Czech professional football club based in the city of Teplice. The club competes in Czech First League, the top tier of Czech football. The club was founded after World War II in 1945. The club advanced to the Czechoslovak First ...

offered Sparta a big transfer price and Postulka moved to

North Bohemia North Bohemia (, ) is a region in the north of the Czech Republic. Location North Bohemia roughly covers the present-day NUTS regional unit of ''CZ04 Severozápad'' and the western part of ''CZ05 Severovýchod''. From an administrative perspec ...

. There he celebrated the win of the Czech Cup and underdog victories in the UEFA Cup. In 2005, he set up two season records by going up to 600 minutes without conceding a goal (it was a club record and 10th best time in league history) and the second record was the accomplishment of having 15 clean sheets.

AC Sparta Prague

On 16 February 2007, he was transferred back to his mother club, AC Sparta Prague.

References

External links

*
Sparta Forever

iHned
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Postulka, Tomas 1974 births Living people Footballers from Prague Men's association football goalkeepers Czech men's footballers Czech Republic men's under-21 international footballers Czech Republic men's international footballers A.D. Carmelita footballers AC Sparta Prague players Dukla Prague footballers FK Teplice players FC Hradec Králové players FC Viktoria Plzeň players 1. FK Drnovice players Czech First League players Czech expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Costa Rica Czech expatriate sportspeople in Costa Rica FK Čáslav players Czech National Football League players