Who is Jankto, the footballer who came out – Corriere.it

He asked for an interview with the coach, the Danish Brian Priske. Then he brought together his Sparta Prague teammates. Few turns of phrase. The truth: I’m gay. No jokes, no nasty comments. Only respect. Having obtained the support of the club for which he plays as a midfielder since last August, he felt ready to face the world. A post on Instagram, the megaphone of social media: Hi, I’m Jakub Jankto. Like everyone, I have my strengths and weaknesses. I have a family, I have my friends. I have a job that I try to do in the best possible way, with seriousness, professionalism and passion. Like everyone, I want to live my life in peace, without fear or prejudice. Without violence, with love. I am homosexual. And I don’t want to hide anymore. At the end of the video Jakub rolls his eyes to the sky, as in a silent prayer. Now the challenge on the football field, the most closed and homophobic environment, in the presence of the choruses of the fans, who know how to be treacherous.

Jankto and Nedved as a myth

It is no coincidence that Jankto, 27 years old, 184 cm by 74 kg, has decided to come out now that a Sparta player

. From Prague, Slavia’s youth team, at the end of the 2000s, it all began. And here he returned to be close to his four-year-old son. My parents wanted me to play sports, I liked football. I started like this. These were negative years for the Czech Republic national team: they went out in the first round at the 2008 European Championship, they didn’t even qualify for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. But the landmark of the young Jakub Pavel Nedved, who won (almost) everything with Juventus from 2001 to 2009: playing in the same role, the second Czech player after Josef Masopust to deserve it, Nevdev also won the Ballon d’Or. It’s 2003. Jakub is seven years old. For the child of Prague, the talent of the Juventus champion is the beacon that shows the way.

His father nicknamed him Sampi (like Samppa Lajunen, the Finnish Nordic combined skier capable of winning three golds at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games) for purely practical reasons: since Jakub is a very common name in the Czech Republic, at every call from the coaches, they turned away in ten. Sampi differentiates the little Jankto, making it immediately unique and special. Besides football, his passion is the arts. Painting, in particular. He likes to paint, he is inspired by the great Czech artists in the technique and by his world in the subjects to be represented: among his works a portrait of Papu Gomez and Petagna, together, at the time of Atalanta, and masked Dybala (The strongest of all according to the artist). The unmistakable signature: JJ.

Half of his football life, he spends it in Italy. the Udinese di Pozzo nursery, a forge of promising champions, to intercept Jakub among the most talented young players of Slavia (he shows off with the Under 18 national team by scoring four goals against Montenegro), the Czech lands at Udinese at eighteen to participate in the Primavera championship, then moved to Ascoli in Serie B (debut in the Italian Cup on 2 August 2015): the experience in the Marche ended with 35 appearances and 5 goals. Jankto’s name begins to circulate, at the end of the loan he returns to Udine, he made his Serie A debut on 21 September 2016, scored the first goal in a 2-1 defeat against Juventus on 15 October . At Sampdoria, three seasons (90 appearances and 8 goals), who spend 15 million to get him, the start with Giampaolo was stunted but then, more at ease in the four-man midfield of Di Francesco and Ranieri, who appreciates him — exactly like Delneri in Udine – for seriousness and commitment, it finds its dimension.

Jakub, in fact, not the usual monothematic and monosyllabic footballer, his interests range outside the world of football: while in the Sampdoria shirt, the magazine Forbes places Jankto among the liveliest Under 30 entrepreneurs esports academy as a brand it has its own nickname, Sampi. With an investment of 1.2 million euros, following the leitmotif of a futuristic project, Jakub hires the best talents of his country in the discipline, rents a two-story villa in Prague equipped with a kitchen with cook, gym and Jacuzzi, those who want to stay overnight, those who prefer go home. Alcohol and smoking are prohibited, a team of psychologists available to athletes: eSports is a job, not bullshit.

Talent, professionalism, few words. Jakub did so. At Udinese the one who publicly complains about the choice of a dilapidated hotel (I felt like a slave, there was so much noise that some of my teammates took sleeping pills), at Sampdoria, recovering from a painful ball to the lower abdomen during the match, put his hands on with Marketa, the girlfriend of the era, in a story on Instagram (Sorry about tonight…). He dreamed of Nedved’s Juventus, the team his father is also rooting for: Pavel with Baros and Rosicky are the symbols of that Czech Republic that reached the semi-finals of Euro 2004, the first tournament that baby Jakub remembers seeing at the television. He came to Udinese’s Primavera training sessions with a dictionary under his arm, today he speaks four languages: Czech, Italian, Spanish (after Sampdoria for a season at Getafe in Spain), Russian. in Italian that, in Stramaccioni’s Udinese, his deputy Dejan Stankovic recommended him: If you see the goalkeeper off the posts, he always shoots. Ed in Czech, the mother tongue, in Prague, his home, che Jakub Jankto has decided to make the most sensational coming out of modern football. Ac Milan offers its support, the environment murmurs, Jakub goes straight on his way. Head held high, freedom within.