Living legend

In the Europe, David Lafata debuted as Austria Wien player in 2007, playing the last 15 minutes against Czech side Jablonec. Since then he played 27 more matches, scoring nineteen goals, sixteen as a Sparta player.

Lot of people doubted his skills in 2013, when Lafata signed with Sparta. However, he scored against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in one of his first matches for Sparta and proved his days were not over.

Since moving to Prague, Lafata appeared in 45 league games, scoring 31 goals – 8 this season. Last year, he was a key part of the team who became the Czech champion, too.

This year, it was the first time for him to play in the Champions League qualification. Levadia Tallinn will definitely remember him the most – Lafata scored five goals in the home game against the Lithuanian champions. He scored a hattrick against Malmö in the next round, however, Sparta did not manage to get through this time.

He did not score in the Europa League play-off against Zwolle, but he was apparently saving the goals for the group stage. Just look at this – two goals against Young Boys, one in Bratislava and two more last night at Letná.

Thanks to the last two strikes, Lafata moved to the top of the top Sparta strikers in the European cups, breaking the record of the legendary attacker (and later a coach, too) Ivan Mráz. Not to mention Lafata needed only 14 matches to do that!

“David’s a top class, really. I’ve been coaching a lot of players, but he’s definitely among the best ones of them. I feel like I repeat this all the time, but we’re really happy to have him on the team,” said the headcoach Vítězslav Lavička after the Thursday’s match vs. Slovan.