Football

Antonín Panenka: A legend with a legacy far into the future

Pepi Bican, Pavel Nedvěd, František Plánička, Josef Masopust and Petr Čech, all of them did a lot for Czech football and will forever be remembered in the history of Czech football. However, Antonín Panenka has something that the others do not have.

Published

3 years ago

22. 8. 2021

David Beňo

Pepi Bican, Pavel Nedvěd, František Plánička, Josef Masopust and Petr Čech, all of them did a lot for Czech football and will forever be written in the history of Czech football. However, Antonín Panenka has something that the others do not have. He has a penalty kick named after him, which will make his name remembered forever.

It didn’t take much and one of the greatest Czech football legends wasn’t even born. Panenka’s parents, Bohumil and Antonia, had their first child in 1931, after which they brought another boy and a girl into the world. When Antonia became pregnant again in 1948, she was deciding whether to keep the baby, as they didn’t have much money as a family and didn’t know if they could afford it.

“Someone told my mother to go to a fortune teller. She told her to definitely keep me, that I would be famous one day,” Panenka later recalled. As a child growing up in Prague, he never let the ball out of his sight. He didn’t grow much as a capart, other peers outnumbered him by two heads. But little Tonda had an incredible football talent.

While playing in the streets of Prague, he was spotted by an Italian, Amadeo Bernacosi, who ran an ice cream stand in Královské Vinohrady. The young Panenka attracted him so much that he got free ice cream every time. He stood out a lot in the Bohemians youth, his football talent was already evident then.

Just before his twentieth birthday, he played his first league match for Bohemians Prague. Before that, he hadn’t played for half a year, and after a ball hit him in the eye, he didn’t even know if he would play again. In the end, he had to have an operation.

In the 1968/68 season he scored his first league goal when he hit the Ostrava net. Panenka stayed with Bohemians until the 1980/81 season, after which he moved to Austrian Rapid Vienna. He played 230 games for the Kangaroos and scored 76 goals.

According to his own words, he was never a hard worker, perhaps he never even scored a goal with his head. However, he had a refined technique, could kick both right and left and had an incredible football mind. He was able to come up with unconventional solutions, which came in handy later in Belgrade.

In 1973 he made his debut for the Czechoslovak national team. In 1976 he was nominated for the European Championship in Yugoslavia. Surprisingly, the Czechoslovak national team won the gold medal there, and on June 20, 1976 in Belgrade, Antonín Panenka made history.

In the final against West Germany, it came down to penalty kicks, with Masny, Nehoda and Ondruš scoring for Czechoslovakia in the first three series, and Bonhof, Flohe and Bongartz scoring for Germany. Jurkemik scored in the fourth series, but Uli Hoeneß missed. Antonín Panenka was about to take the fifth decisive penalty.

Nerves? Oh, no. Panenka made a run, instead of a shot to the bar, he just slightly undercut the ball, Sepp Maier jumped to the side and the ball went into the net in a beautiful arc.

Panenka was the first player to ever attempt such a kick. But it wasn’t a random idea, he had already thought of this trick for a long time. According to his own words, he had tried this kick at least thirty times, and failed only once. He knew that if it was his turn, he would kick the penalty just like that.

It made him absolutely immortal. In Spain, this penalty was nicknamed “panenka”, which was later adopted in England. Now, if someone takes a penalty with a long ball, the media around the world will hear the name of the Prague native.

Spanish stopper Sergio Ramos is one of the frequent enforcers of dolly-style penalties. He has already scored several times, while Lionel Messi, Zinedine Zidane and many other football stars have also tried it.

In Spain, there is even a football magazine named after the Czech footballer, which bears the same name “Panenka”.

Antonín Panenka