When Cech joined Chelsea ahead of the 2004/05 season, he displaced Cudicini, then the club's first-choice goalkeeper, from the starting lineup. "It was a huge disappointment for me at the time," admits the former Italy goalkeeper. But from his own experience, he knew that rivalry between goalkeepers could be destructive, and he did not want to create a similar environment at the Blues.
"When I was a youngster at AC Milan, there was huge rivalry between Sebastian Rossi and Francesco Antonioli, and at times it became ugly," Cudicini recalls.
"When I later found myself in a similar situation - when I wasn't playing and wasn't happy - I told myself that I did not want to behave like that. The only way to prove my worth was to train as well as possible," he explains of his approach to competition.
Both goalkeeping legends agree that their competition with each other helped improve their performances and contributed to Chelsea's success as a whole. "Over the years, we built a very good goalkeeping group. Whoever was part of it, we worked together brilliantly," Cudicini recalls.
The full TV version of this episode of the Big Pete documentary series will be available on CANAL+ Sport and the CANAL+ streaming service in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, Poland, Myanmar, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Romania and Hungary, and on SuperSport in South Africa and Switzerland.
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