Richard Hamsik had waited long enough. His 15-year-old son, Marek, was doing well with the small Slovakian club Jupie Podlavice but Sparta Prague, who had shown an interest in him, were taking too long to conclude a deal to sign him.
Slovan Bratislava were another option for young Marek but they could not afford the €5,000 fee Jupie Podlavice were demanding and that is when Hamsik Sr took the decision to raise the money himself.
He borrowed part of it from two good friends and then, to get to €5,000, he sold the family car, a Skoda Felicia. Losing the car, however, was not the only hardship Hamsik had to endure to see his son succeed. To make matters worse, when the family travelled the 212 kilometres to Bratislava for training, the car they had borrowed had only two seats so Marek’s mother and Marek were in the front and his father had to sit in the back.
“Every parent wants to see his child achieve as much as possible,” Richard Hamsik tells the Guardian. “We have always supported our children so that they can do their best in sport. Marek always looked comfortable with the ball, maybe even since he was three years old.
“So my wife and I said that we would do everything for him and give him a chance. If he would not have been successful, he could just have returned back home from Bratislava at any time. We asked him if he wanted to take the next step and when he said yes we sacrificed everything.”
They have not had cause to regret their decision. Marek Hamsik is one of the best players at Euro 2016. He may not be as good as Cristiano Ronaldo or Gareth Bale but he is not far away, and is possibly better than any player in the England team he faces on Monday night in the final Group B game. Last Wednesday, against Russia, he collected the ball outside the area, took one touch to control it, then another to turn a defender before, without looking up, bending a beautiful right-foot shot past Igor Akinfeev and into the top corner. It proved decisive as Slovakia won 2-1.
He is Slovakia almost as much as Bale is Wales and Ronaldo is Portugal. That has not always been the case, though. The only time he has faced England, for example, in 2009, he was used as a left midfielder as Slovakia lost 4-0 in the rain at Wembley (England had David James and Emile Heskey in the starting XI).
For a long time Hamsik was criticised for not performing as well for his country as he did for Napoli, where he has been since 2007. In September 2011 his relationship with the Slovakia fans hit a new low when, after a terrible 4-0 home defeat by Armenia, he was insulted by home supporters during a television interview. They felt that he was not working hard enough.
“Since I started playing for the national team [in February 2007 against Poland], I have always tried to put maximum effort in,” he says. “I always did everything for our colours. For me, it is an honour to wear the shirt with a double cross on the chest. Of course I am aware that sometimes my performances were far from ideal. However, over the last two or three years, I have had more success with the national team [as well as with Napoli]. I think that Slovakia fans are more satisfied with my game now.”
Hamsik’s improvement for Slovakia was aided by the appointment of Jan Kozak as national coach in July 2013. Previously, he had been deployed in a variety of positions but Kozak made him the main man, with a licence to roam. “I was given a freedom and I try to use it as much as possible,” Hamsik says. “Of course, it is a sign of coach Kozak’s belief in my skills. On the other side, I now have bigger responsibility and I have to work really well with all my team-mates. Now I can go a little deeper to collect the ball and try to start attacks by finding my team-mates.”
These days he takes so much responsibility for Slovakia that it is fair to say he is more a latter-day Wayne Rooney or a Steven Gerrard than the main attacking outlet. Asked about England before the game in Saint-Étienne, he picks out Rooney as his favourite player. “I admire his playing style a lot,” Hamsik says. “He is a world‑class player.”
Asked which player in the England team he is most similar to, he adds: “The English team is going through a big change in regard to the players. There is a new generation coming through and there is a perfect blend of young and old. I am not sure if there is a player with the same characteristics as me. In the past the press has often compared me to Steven Gerrard but I don’t know if that is true or not.”
In one respect, he is similar to the former Liverpool player in that he has rejected several offers to leave the club he calls “his second home” and to which he has a strong loyalty. He joined Napoli after three years at Brescia, where he arrived in 2004 having played not a single game in Slovakia’s top division and speaking not a word of Italian. That was not a problem, though, as he settled immediately and made his debut for Brescia aged 17 years and 236 days.
When he moved to Napoli he was presented to the press along with Ezequiel Lavezzi, with the billing “These are the future stars of Napoli”. It was prescient. Lavezzi is no longer with the club but Hamsik is. He has played more games for Napoli than Diego Maradona (he passed the Argentinian’s tally in the autumn of 2012) and has been instrumental in Napoli finishing second in the league for the past two seasons.
He is happy there despite being robbed at gunpoint not once but twice in the city. The first time was in 2008, the second five years later. “I have been playing there for nine years now, so Napoli is like a second home for me,” he says. “I am happy that I am there and that I have achieved a lot during my spell there.”
At the moment he is not considering a move. In the press conference after the Russia game, Kozak said that Hamsik “deserves a better club”, but the player himself is not so sure. “We will see what happens during the summer but at the moment I am set to stay at Napoli. [A move away] is talked about through the whole year [in the press]. I do not have problem with that, but I have a contract with Napoli.”
Would he consider a move to England if there was an offer? “I don’t know. A lot of journalists have linked me with English teams many times in the past. The saying goes that there is no smoke without fire but I can say that I have never had a concrete offer from England.” Monday night’s game may just change that.
