Argentina above all! The most devoted fan of Messi and Maradona lives in the Czech countryside
Miloslav "Čurby" Urbanec has a private football pitch in his garden, a statue of Maradona stands outside his house, and the façade of the family home is painted in the colours of Argentina. If Czechia were ever to face Argentina at the World Cup, the country’s biggest Argentina fan says he would not hesitate for a second about which team to support.
Miloslav Urbanec had always loved football, but after Argentina's victory at the 1978 FIFA World Cup, when he was just four years old, he became a lifelong supporter of the South American champions.
“I really love football. I love playing it, watching it — I always have. When I started, I must have been four or five years old, my father and my family were founding football teams here, they had always been interested in the sport. My dad is a Brazil fan because of Pelé, Sócrates and that whole generation of technically gifted players that he admired. But I chose Argentina. First, because they looked like Winnetou. You know, Winnetou, the Native American character with the long hair… he was my childhood hero. And secondly, because they won the 1978 World Cup. For me, it was something completely incredible. That’s where it all started, and it captured me forever.”
After returning from the last World Cup in Qatar, Miloslav Urbanec decided to take his passion for football to a whole new level. He had the entire façade of his house covered with a huge mural dedicated to the world champions. A tribute so extravagant that it probably does not even exist in Argentina itself.
“I chose the best graffiti artist we have, someone who really knows how to paint murals and makes a living doing it. The mural includes the assistant coaches, the goalkeeping coach, Pablo Aimar, whom I’ve always admired, Walter Samuel, of course Scaloni, and the entire squad, including the substitutes. I’m always getting ideas and visions for things to do around the house. For example, there used to be a sort of swamp out back, so I had a Bombonera stadium built there – my own private football stadium, a small five-a-side pitch where we can play.”
In addition to painting the façade of his house in the colours of the Argentine flag and adding a three-metre sun that lights up at night thanks to LED lights, as well as building a miniature Bombonera made with original strips of grass from Boca’s stadium, illustrations of the club’s greatest idols and even a stand for fifty people, Miloslav also owns around fifty shirts from different Argentine clubs, numerous copies of the magazine El Gráfico, and rooms where he keeps countless posters of the two greatest footballers of all time, Diego Armando Maradona and Lionel Messi, along with shirts and photographs signed by other Argentine football stars.
However, among this entire collection of football memorabilia, he has no hesitation in pointing out which item is the most important one for him.
“I have a signed photograph of Diego Armando Maradona from his time at Napoli. A Dutch friend of mine, Job, whom I knew through music, wrote to Napoli asking for a signed card from Maradona, and they sent him two. He kept them, and about ten years ago he said to me, ‘Look, you're the biggest Maradona fan I know, you should have one.’ Just like that. So now I keep it in my office upstairs, and I look at it all the time.”
This football passion goes far beyond decorating his home. It has also influenced the names he chose for his children.
“My middle son is named Lionel. And when our youngest was born, I actually begged my wife, even in the delivery room: ‘Please, let's name him Diego Armando.’ She was in labour and kept saying, ‘No, please, no. It sounds too over-the-top. It just doesn't work.’ So his name is Quentin, after Tarantino, and Nikolas, after Sir Nicholas Winton, who saved more than 600 children during the Second World War. So I didn't get my way, but maybe one day one of my sons will have a child with that name.”
Indeed, he admits that his passion for Argentina and Boca Juniors consumes him to such an extent that he has almost no room left for any Czech club. The only exception — and the only Czech player Miloslav displays on his wall with a painting personally signed by him — is the legendary Antonín Panenka, whom he considers “a little bit Argentine” because of the way he took the penalty that secured Czechoslovakia’s victory over Germany in the European Championship final.
“People ask me if I would like to meet Messi, but no. I would bother him. Everyone bothers him. What for? I’m happy to live in his era. Of course. I’m happy just watching him play, seeing that he is a normal, family-oriented person, like me. I love that. I don’t want to bother him. It would be vulgar. It wouldn’t make sense. If he wanted to come to Prague and stop by here, that would be wonderful, but I wouldn’t go looking for him.”
