Nastja Čeh (born 26 January 1978) is a Slovenian former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Club career

Čeh started his career with his hometown club Drava Ptuj. By the age of 17 he was playing in the first team in the 2. SNL. In the 1996–97 season he moved from Drava to Maribor, later spending one season at Olimpija before returning to Maribor. Čeh then moved on to Club Brugge. His first season at the club brought success in the

Belgian Cup The Belgian Cup (french: link=no, Coupe de Belgique; nl, Beker van België []; german: link=no, Belgischer Fußballpokal) is the main Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in Belgium, run by the Belgia ...

, and the following season he helped the club win their 12th league title. In August 2002 he scored a late equalising goal in the second-leg of Brugge's Champions League third round qualifying tie against

Shakhtar Donetsk Football Club Shakhtar Donetsk ( uk, Футбольний клуб «Шахтар» Донецьк , short nickname "miners") is a Ukrainian professional football club from the city of Donetsk. In 2014, due to the War in Donbass, the club was f ...

. Brugge then went on to qualify through a

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

. In 2005 Čeh was sold to Austria Wien. Jupiler League team Charleroi tried to buy Čeh in late August 2006 but in 2007 he instead signed for Russian Premier Liga side

FC Khimki FC Khimki (russian: ФК Химки) is a Russian professional football club based in Khimki. The club returned to the Russian Premier League in the 2020–21 season. History The team was formed in 1996 by merging two amateur clubs from Khimki ...

, where he was given the number 10 shirt. On 5 January 2009, he left Khimki and moved to Greek club

Panserraikos Panserraikos Football Club ( el, Πανσερραϊκός 1964), the ''All-Serres Football Club'', is a Greece, Greek Association football, football club based in Serres in Central Macedonia, Greece. Panserraikos is one of the most important and ...

. After a short spell in Greece, he signed for Rijeka, spending a season there before moving on yet again to play in Israel. In April 2012 Čeh signed for PSMS Medan (ISL) of the Indonesia Super League. His debut match was on 9 April, where he came on in the 53rd minute replacing Muhammad Antoni; he also received his first yellow card on that match.

International career

Čeh was capped 46 times for

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

and scored six goals. He made two appearances for the national team during the

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial football world championship for men's national teams organized by FIFA. It was held from 31 May to 30 June 2002 at sites in South Korea an ...

, both times coming on as a substitute.

Controversies

In April 2011, it was revealed by the Slovenian media that Maribor police department was, for the past six months, investigating an illegal betting organization and six individuals, four of which were from the Maribor area and had already been taken into custody. The Police also revealed that two other collaborators were still at large and that one of those was Goran Šukalo. Šukalo categorically denied his involvement in the matter and revealed that another football player, Nastja Čeh, was still owing him €73,000 and was avoiding payment. Allegedly this was the reason why Čeh pawned his property near Ptuj to Kosta Turner, which was visible from the official real estate papers. In January 2012, the general prosecutor on the District Court in Maribor proposed an indictment of six individuals, ring leaders of the illegal betting organization, in light of new evidence against them. The organization allegedly accepted a total of €43 million of bets, with €2.53 million being placed by Čeh.

Career statistics

:''Scores and results list Slovenia's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Čeh goal.''

Honours

Maribor * Prva liga: 1999–2000, 2000–01 Club Brugge * Jupiler League: 2002–03, 2004–05 *

: 2001–02 Belgian Cup, 2001–02, 2002–03 Belgian Cup, 2002–03, 2003–04 * Belgian Supercup: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Austria Wien *

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

: 2005–06 * Austrian Cup: 2005–06

References

External links

Player profile
at PrvaLiga
National team stats
at NZS * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ceh, Nastja 1978 births Living people People from Ptuj Slovenian footballers Association football midfielders Slovenia international footballers Slovenia youth international footballers Slovenia under-21 international footballers 2002 FIFA World Cup players Slovenian PrvaLiga players Slovenian Second League players Belgian Pro League players Austrian Football Bundesliga players Russian Premier League players Croatian Football League players Israeli Premier League players Liga 1 (Indonesia) players V.League 1 players NK Drava Ptuj players NK Maribor players NK Olimpija Ljubljana (1945–2005) players Club Brugge KV players FK Austria Wien players FC Khimki players Panserraikos F.C. players HNK Rijeka players Bnei Sakhnin F.C. players Maccabi Petah Tikva F.C. players PSMS Medan players Thanh Hóa FC players NK Drava Ptuj (2004) players Slovenian expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Croatia Slovenian expatriate sportspeople in Croatia Expatriate footballers in Russia Slovenian expatriate sportspeople in Russia Expatriate footballers in Israel Slovenian expatriate sportspeople in Israel Expatriate footballers in Belgium Slovenian expatriate sportspeople in Belgium Expatriate footballers in Austria Slovenian expatriate sportspeople in Austria Expatriate footballers in Indonesia Slovenian expatriate sportspeople in Indonesia Expatriate footballers in Vietnam