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Milan Baros

He is a Czech international football player. He plays as a forward. He has the nickname Ostrava's Maradona.

Milan Baroš (born 28 October 1981 in Vigantice, Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic) is a Czech international footballer. As of 9 July 2006, he has been capped 52 times, scoring 30 goals: an exceptional international strike rate, which his achievements in club football do not yet match. He is a striker who currently plays for Lyon. He has previously played for Liverpool, Aston Villa, and FC Baník Ostrava, where he earned the nickname Ostrava's Maradona.
At the 2004 European Football Championship, he scored the first goal for the Czech Republic in their first game of the tournament, a come-from-behind 2-1 victory over Latvia. He went on to score goals in the Czechs' other two group matches. His second goal was an equalizer against the Netherlands; the Dutch team had a two-goal lead over the Czechs until the 22nd minute, when Jan Koller scored from a Baroš pass. The Czechs went on to win that game. The last was a game-winning goal against Germany. Baroš and Dutch star Ruud van Nistelrooy were the only two players in the tournament to score in all three of their group matches.
Baroš added two goals in two minutes of the second half of the Czechs' quarterfinal win over Denmark, and finished as the tournament's Golden Boot with five goals.
At the 2006 FIFA World Cup, a persistent foot injury kept him out of games against the United States and Ghana. He did appear in the Czech's final group game against Italy, but was considered unfit and was subsequently withdrawn after 65 minutes.
Though he has had success at the international level, at club level his performance is mediocre at best. Though highly regarded as a dangerous stirker, he has often failed to live up to expectation. Baroš joined Liverpool in 2002, and after a difficult start at his new club, he hit his best form for his club early in the 2004-05 season. A lack of attacking players in the squad, exacerbated by a season-long injury to Djibril Cissé, meant that there was even more pressure on Baroš to score goals.
Later in the 2004-05 season, Baroš could not reproduce his international form for Liverpool, despite being the club's joint top scorer with thirteen goals. However, he led Liverpool to the 2005 UEFA Champions League Final final, playing virtually all the games in the competition as a lone striker as the club clinched its fifth title. Baroš reportedly dropped the trophy during the team's celebration, leaving a dent, but Liverpool decided not to mend it.
In June 2005, Baroš' future at Liverpool looked bleak, with the player seemingly poised to leave Liverpool to rejoin former manager Gérard Houllier at Lyon who had expressed interest in bringing him to France. Baroš, however, rejected the move, saying that he wanted to prove himself at Liverpool. It was widely reported, however, that Liverpool would try to sell Baroš before the transfer window closed on 31 August. Adding fuel to these rumours was Liverpool's purchase of Peter Crouch from Southampton, along with the decision by manager Rafael Benítez not to play Baroš in any of Liverpool's Champions League qualifying-round ties. By not playing Baroš, Benítez assured that Baroš would not be cup-tied to Liverpool, Cup-tied players are considerably less valuable, especially to the types of elite teams that could reasonably afford the transfer fee that Liverpool would likely require for Baroš. Indeed, two clubs that had already qualified for the group phase, Lyon and Schalke, strongly pursued Baroš, but he expressed a desire to stay in the Premiership or to move to Spain.
On 23 August 2005, after weeks of haggling between the two clubs, Baroš moved to fellow Premiership side Aston Villa for a fee of £6.5 million, plus a further £0.5m payable after fifty appearances. He signed a four-year contract and was given the Number 10 shirt. Just ten minutes into his Aston Villa debut, he scored the only goal in his new team's victory over Blackburn Rovers.
On 5 December 2006, Baroš rejected a move to Spanish side Real Sociedad. On 22 January 2007, Baroš signed with French side Lyon, reuniting with former manager Gérard Houllier from his time at Liverpool. The deal swapped Baros with Lyon striker John Carew, who joined Aston Villa on a three-and-a-half-year deal.
On January 24 2007, he made his Lyon Ligue 1 debut against Bordeaux.
On April 18, 2007, during Lyon's match against Rennes, Baroš was accused of making a racist gesture towards his Cameroon-born opponent Stéphane Mbia. After having been fouled by Mbia several times, Baroš held his nose in front of Mbia and waved his hand as if to waft away an unpleasant smell. In the ensuing controversy, Baroš insisted that his gesture was not intended to be racist in any way, and he was only trying to tell Mbia to get out of his face and leave him alone. On May 4, Baroš and Mbia were brought before an official disciplinary hearing of the LFP. The jury ruled that Baroš was innocent of racist behavior, but he was nevertheless suspended for the remainder of the season for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Lyon
28 October 1981
Source: Wikipedia