Jerzy Dudek

Jerzy Dudek

Personal information
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Position(s)	Goalkeeper
Team information
Current team	Real Madrid
Number	25
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of December 10, 2008

Jerzy Dudek (pronounced Polish pronunciation: [ˈjɛʐɨ ˈdudɛk]); born 23 March 1973 in Rybnik) is a Polish football goalkeeper who plays for Spanish La Liga club Real Madrid C.F. He has been capped 58 times for the Poland national team, and won the UEFA Champions League with Liverpool F.C. in 2005.

Career

Dudek began playing football at youth level at twelve for Górnik II Knurów. At sixteen, he made his debut in the oldest youth team of Górnik Knurów, before moving to Concordia Knurów in the Polish third division two years later. He set a goalkeeping record of 416 minutes in the third league without conceding a goal. After four years at the club, he moved to Sokół Tychy, making his debut against Legia Warsaw. He only played fifteen games before moving to Holland.

He left Poland in 1996 to join Feyenoord, but had to wait a year before he made his debut, then played 140 consecutive games for the club. He won his first trophy in the 1998-99 season, along with the Dutch Super Cup later that year after defeating Ajax. Dudek was named the Dutch Goalkeeper Of The Year, becoming the first non-Dutch goalkeeper to win the award. He would retain the award again the following season. He played his final game for Feyenoord on 26 August 2001, against Ajax.

Dudek joined Liverpool August 2001, and was coach Gerard Houllier's first choice between the sticks. Following a splendid season where his clean sheets and fine performances helped Liverpool finish second in the Premiership behind Double-winners Arsenal, he was nominated alongside Oliver Kahn and Gianluigi Buffon for UEFA Goalkeeper of the Year at the end of the 2001-02 season. Next season he rebounded spectacularly from a series of poor errors in the Premiership to win the League Cup with a Man-of-the-Match performance against Manchester United in the Final. Pope John Paul II, who was a goalkeeper in his youth, met personally with Dudek in 2004, telling him that he was a fan of Dudek's and followed Liverpool whenever they played. Dudek, who had the honour of presenting the Pope with a souvenir goalkeeper shirt, would later dedicate Liverpool's Champions League success to the late pontiff.

Dudek was a catalyst in Liverpool's 2005 Champions League success, performing a double save against A.C. Milan's Andriy Shevchenko at the end of extra time in the final, after Liverpool had rallied from a 3-0 deficit to tie the match 3-3. He saved from Pirlo and Shevchenko in the ensuing penalty shoot-out, which Liverpool won 3-2. During the shoot-out, he attempted to distract the Milan players with the "spaghetti legs" tactic that was used by former Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar in the 1984 European Cup final. As a tribute to his heroics, a group of Liverpool fans called the Trophy Boyz recorded a successful novelty single called "Du the Dudek."

He received his second UEFA Goalkeeper of the Year nomination, but lost his starting position to new acquisition José Manuel Reina the next season following an arm injury. Dudek made a total of twelve more appearances over the next two seasons before departing to Real Madrid at the end of the 2006-07 season. Despite courting controversy by accusing manager Rafael Benitez of 'treating him like a slave', Dudek insisted that he had no ill feelings towards the club or anyone associated with it and only wanted to leave after failing to make Poland's World Cup squad, but still stayed on for another year at the manager's request. For these and several other reasons he is still regarded with esteem among Liverpool fans, who voted him in at a creditable No.36 in the list of 100 Players Who Shook The Kop.

Dudek's on-field activity at Madrid has been limited due to the presence of Iker Casillas, who has played in the lion's share of the club's games throughout the 2007-08 and current season. Nevertheless, his attitude and work ethic has earned praise from his fans, teammates, coaching staff and several Spanish journalists; his Man of the Match performance in his La Liga Debut in the penultimate game of the 2007-08 season against Real Zaragoza was hailed in the Spanish press, despite not being enough to earn selection for Poland's squad for Euro 2008. In new coach Juande Ramos's first game as Madrid manager Dudek was handed the start ahead of Casillas for Madrid's final Champions League group game against UEFA Cup and UEFA Super Cup winners Zenit St. Petersburg at the Bernabeu. In a match where Madrid's attacking play made headlines, Dudek made several fine saves and exuded an air of calm solidity and confidence, particularly on crosses, earning a clean sheet in the process. This performance earned glowing praise from Ramos, who highlighted the Polish goalkeeper's qualities and referred to him as a 'magnificent player'. In spite of this performance, Casillas returned to take the first team spot and Dudek spent much of the season on the bench as a substitute. Real Madrid drew Liverpool in the Champions League but Dudek did not get the opportunity to play against his former club. Real Madrid lost the tie 5–0 on aggregate.

According to reports back in Poland he looks set to end his disappointing stay at Madrid in the close season and re-sign for Feyenoord where he will work with Poland coach Leo Beenhakker, who interestingly enough coached Dudek in his first spell at Feyenoord and handed the goalkeeper his last cap for Poland.

International career

Dudek is his country's second-most capped goalkeeper with 58 caps for Poland. He received his first call up in 1996 as an unused substitute during a friendly against Russia in Moscow, and won his first cap in February 1998 in a friendly against Israel. He was a member the 2002 FIFA World Cup squad that was eliminated in the group stage, and also played in nearly all of his country's matches in qualifying for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. However, due to his lack of appearances at club level in the 2005-06 season, he was dropped from the starting lineup in favor of Artur Boruc, and was left off the final squad as a result. He captained the team once in a friendly against Estonia.

Dudek's omission from the 2006 World Cup Squad was greeted with shock among Polish fans and the national media, with one newspaper's headline reading 'Has (then Poland coach Pawel) Janas gone mad?!'. And during a warm-up match against Colombia where both Boruc and Tomasz Kuszczak were at fault for each of the goals in a 2-1 defeat, the angered Polish fans started to chant Dudek's name as a reminder of what they perceived as a mistake by Janas to drop him. It is worth noting that Kuszczak's goal, which prompted the chants, was directly from a goal-kick from the Colombian goalkeeper Neco Martinez.

It is unknown whether Dudek will play for the national team again, although he is hopeful that with more football he will be back in the picture. His chances have certainly received an unexpected boost following a horror display by Boruc in a World Cup Qualifier against Northern Ireland on 28 March 2009 where he was at fault for two of the three goals conceded in a 3-2 defeat.

Ambassador for Euro 2012

Dudek's status as an icon in Poland played a crucial role in securing the status of joint host nation for the Euro 2012 Championships for his country. Along with his Champions' League nemesis Andriy Shevchenko of the Ukraine, he was a part of the joint delegation and was involved in a presentation with the striker.

Personal life

Dudek and his wife, Mirella, have one son, Aleksander, and two daughters, Wiktoria and Natalia. His father was a miner and he has spoken of himself having taken training to follow in his father's footsteps before his opportunity to play football came along. His brother, Dariusz, is also a footballer. Jerzy Dudek has stated that he would like to start a football academy in Poland with his brother after retiring from football.

Dudek refused to wear the '13' jersey after arriving at Real Madrid, stating that Polish goalkeepers never use 13; the numbers 1, 12 and 22 are traditionally used. He therefore wears '25' as it is the next best thing (Jordi Codina wears '13').

In 2005, he received the title of the honourable citizen of Knurów, during a charity match called "Jerzy Dudek & Friends." He also made his Polish television debut as an analyst for the 2005 European Super Cup final between Liverpool and CSKA Moscow, which he missed due to injury.

Honours

Feyenoord

• Eredivisie: 1998-99
• Johan Cruijff-schaal: 1999-00

Liverpool

• League Cup: 2002-03
• UEFA Champions League: 2004-05
• European Super Cup: 2005-06
• FA Cup: 2005-06
• Community Shield: 2006-07

Real Madrid

• La Liga: 2007-08
• Spanish Super Cup: 2008-09

Individual

• Dutch Goalkeeper of the Year: 1998-99, 1999-00

Career statistics

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1995-96||GKS Tychy||Ekstraklasa||15||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||15||0 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1996-97||rowspan="6"|Feyenoord||rowspan="6"|Eredivisie||0||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||0||0 |- |1997-98||34||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||2||0||36||0 |- |1998-99||34||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||34||0 |- |1999-00||34||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||6||0||40||0 |- |2000-01||34||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||8||0||42||0 |- |2001-02||3||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||3||0 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2001-02||rowspan="6"|Liverpool||rowspan="6"|Premier League||35||0||2||0||0||0||12||0||49||0 |- |2002-03||30||0||2||0||2||0||11||0||45||0 |- |2003-04||30||0||3||0||1||0||4||0||38||0 |- |2004-05||24||0||1||0||6||0||10||0||41||0 |- |2005-06||6||0||0||0||0||0||0||0||6||0 |- |2006-07||2||0||1||0||2||0||1||0||5||0 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2007–08||rowspan="2"|Real Madrid||rowspan="2"|La Liga||1||0||4||0||0||0||0||0||5||0 |- |2008–09||0||0||2||0||0||0||1||0||3||0 |- Template:Football player statistics 315||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||15||0 Template:Football player statistics 4139||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||16||0||155||0 Template:Football player statistics 4126||0||9||0||11||0||38||0||184||0 Template:Football player statistics 41||0||6||0||0||0||1||0||8||0 Template:Football player statistics 5281||0||15||0||11||0||55||0||362||0 |}

External links

• Jerzy Dudek at Soccerbase
• Jerzy Dudek's Official Website
• LFChistory.net player profile