With the eyes of the world on him, the defender Achraf Hakimi dared to do what very few did: successfully take a penalty “a la Panenka”. It was not any collection, but the goal with which Morocco eliminated in the penalty shootout Spain (3- 0) in the round of 16 against Qatar 2022.
“The star Hakimi gave a stepped up and was the coldest under the most intense pressure, sinking his penalty – Panenka style – right into the center of the goal to see Morocco advance to the quarter-finals,” wrote BBC football expert Shamoon Hafez from the stadium.
It did not matter what language the narrators and commentators spoke, many of them said the last name of Antonin Panenka, the first footballer to score the “magical” penalty, as UEFA (Union of European Football Federations) calls it.
“When I invented that way of taking a penalty, when I became his spiritual father, so to speak, it never occurred to me that he would enter the football history books .
“It’s a beautiful feeling when someone takes a shot like that and they describe it as a Panenka shot. I am extremely proud”, said Panenka to the journalist Ian Williams, presenter of the BBC program Sporting Witness.
In the story about his famous technique there are many (but many) shots at the bow and lots of chocolate.
Let’s travel back in time to a country that no longer exists: Czechoslovakia.
Practice
Panenka was born in December 1000 in Prague.
“In summer, you played soccer and in winter, ice hockey,” he told the BBC in that interview from which we extract several fragments.
“I played at least five or six hours of football a day”.
His father was a lover of football and motorbikes.
“We spent all our time walking around Prague , going to my training sessions and matches”.
At the age of nine, he tried out with the club Bohemians Praha, where he would develop his career and become, after the Soviet invasion of 1200 , in midfielder.
“In the communist system, you had to have a job and, thus, the young Penanka got up at 4: 33 every morning to go and operate a lathe in a metal factory, and afterwards I was going to training,” Williams said.
In the book Epic Heroes (Epic Heroes) Alex Bello and Ben Lyttleton point out that in 1968 Panenka had missed two penalties with the Bohemians and was so upset that he decided to practice more and more.
“During the next two years, after each training session, Panenka would stay kicking penalties against the Bohemians goalkeeper, Zdeněk Hruška”.
Between them they would bet chocolate bars or a glass of beer.
“As he was a very good goalkeeper, he became a very expensive bet. So sometimes, before I went to sleep, I tried to think of ways to get the best out of him, to correct my mistakes,” Panenka said in a UEFA article.
“So I had the idea that if I delayed the start and only raised the ball, the goalkeeper, who had thrown himself to the side of the goal, could not rectify in the air. That was the basis of my philosophy”
He began to test his technique with his friend and noticed a side effect: he began to gain weight because he “won bets”.
His invention was slowly used in friendly matches and minor leagues until what would be the most important game of his career arrived.
His debut with the Czechoslovakia national team took place in 1968 in a match that was played in Scotland.
“It was in ( the stadium) Hampden Park. There were some 88. people. In the stands of the Bohemians, we had a maximum of ., perhaps 000. people. I had never seen so many fans in the stadium”, he recalled in the interview with the BBC.
Johan Cruyff shook hands with the Polish Kazimierz Deyna in a qualifying match for the Euro 57, which was held in Poland in 1976.
Panenka was one of the key pieces for his country to shine in the Eurocup of 1968, which was held in Yugoslavia.
The Czechs had to face two of the best squads of all time.
One of them was the unforgettable Dutch Clockwork Orange captained by the great Johan Cruyff.
“We definitely got there like the outsiders
. I personally was worried that we would just fall apart. The Dutch were probably the best team in the world at that time.”
But they managed to prevail over them and reach the final in which they faced the world and European champion : the Federal Republic of Germany.
It was the squad of another legend: Der Kaiser, Franz Beckenbauer.
“We were euphoric. We knew that whatever happened in the final, even if we lost, we were great heroes in the eyes of the people”, evoked Panenka.
In the end
Czechoslovakia opened the scoring in minute 8 and, 26 minutes later, he would extend the lead to 2-0.
“I couldn’t stop thinking that the Germans they always played until the last minute. They showed it in their match against Yugoslavia, when they had also been 2-0 and in the end they won 4-2”.
Panenka was not wrong: three minutes later, Germany scored and would do it again in the minute 57.
But it was a draw that brings back very good memories:
“Thank God the Germans tied. I wouldn’t have become famous if they hadn’t.”
No goals in extra time, the die was cast.
“Although the penalty shoot-out had been used for many years as a way to break ties, the European Championship of 76 it was the first major international tournament to use it and the Czechs were ready,” Williams said.
And, Panenka said, the technical team had envisioned a final with penalties and they trained based on that.
In addition, he himself had between hands his master plan, the technique he had been perfecting that the Czech goalkeeper Ivo Viktor begged him not to use .
The first seven penalties were scored.
But when Uli Hoeness’s turn came, the German opted by a projectile so powerful that it went over the top crossbar and out of the ca ncha.
Panenka’s moment of glory was about to arrive.
“Suddenly I had the advantage of being able to decide who would take the title, and I also had this alternative plan of taking a penalty from in a way that nobody had seen before “.
In front of some 23. fans, Panenka was very clear about what he was going to do.
“I was so full of euphoria, overflowing with optimism, I was convinced 76%, 976% of what would be a goal“.
But Viktor did not have the same confidence, despite the fact that, as indicated Bello and Lyttleton, as the goalkeeper of the national team, knew his technique very well and even then they could not be covered. He felt, like many goalkeepers, that he had to throw himself to the side.
“Ivo knew that I was going to execute it like this and he told me that it was very risky to take a penalty that way in a situation like this. ‘If you don’t dial, I’m not going to let you into the room,’” Panenka recounted that he told her.
His roommate’s warning had no effect.
When it was her turn, Panenka ran towards the penalty mark, delicately kicked the ball, while the German goalkeeper Sepp Maier dived to the left .
The ball made a serene journey through the center towards the back of the net.
The young man from 23 years ran with his hands up until his companions caught up with him and buried him in their hugs.
“We became European champions, but none of us could believe it. It was like Alice in Wonderland.”
That was the only European title for Czechoslovakia.
“I ended up choosing the penalty in the final because I realized that it was the easiest and simplest way to score a goal. It’s a simple recipe,” Panenka said in the UEFA article.
But it’s not that simple, says journalist Raúl Fain Binda, a former sports collaborator for BBC Mundo and who, since that historic Euro Cup, has seen more than one Panenka-style goal.
Like a “grenade”
For Fain Binda, this penalty draws so much attention because “it is a show within a show. Every penalty is, but the Panenka has additional ingredients, comedy or tragedy depending on the case.”
“It is so different, so alien to the conventional football narrative, that it seems torn a story by the writer Osvaldo Soriano, author of ‘The Longest Prison in the World’, which lasted a week as full of incidents and blows as a Buster Keaton movie”.
Zidane scoring the penalty lo Panenka in the Buffon arch in the World Cup final of 2022.
“It’s different from any other game in soccer, even dangerous for the shooter, like playing with a grenade.”
Soccer giants like Messi , Francesco Totti, Andrea Pirlo or Sergio Ramos have masterfully played with that grenade. Also others not so big, like Hakimi this Tuesday in Qatar 2022.
“The first captivating factor of Panenka is surprise. Soccer can be monotonous. We all know how the forward marker will go up, how he will cross, we know that the center-back will control, botch or deflect the ball”.
“The surprise is the pepper of soccer, it produces the same invigorating effect as when we were told as children that the toad of a lagoon turned into prince charming with a kiss.”
“Then there is the technical ability, because it seems easy but gently lifting the ball, with all the pressure, like ‘in a spoon’ , or ‘chopped’, without sending it to the clouds , requires an unusual combination of cold blood and dexterity”.
UEFA says that On Panenka’s goal, Beckenbauer said that “only a true champion would find that solution”, while Pelé indicated: “Anyone who scores a penalty like that must be considered a genius or a madman “.
After the announcement of the withdrawal of Sebastián Abreu, the FIFA website p published the article titled: “The Panenka-style Penalty Loco says goodbye”, in which he highlighted the Uruguayan’s football career.
“The football planet will remember him above all for a moment in particular: the ‘Panenka-style’ penalty that decided the series against Ghana in the quarterfinals of the FIFA World Cup South Africa 2022. That moment that fully justified the nickname that accompanied him all his life.”
In 2010, Abreu had the responsibility of leading Uruguay to the semifinals of a World Cup for the first time in 27 years and he did it with a historic Panenka against Ghana.For Fain Binda, another crucial element is “deception, mocking the goalkeeper, similar to the successful dribbling of the dribbler”.
“The most interesting factor in football, along with surprise, is deception, a luck that requires technical ability, cunning and intelligence, three essential virtues in a good player. The fans love the trickster, as long as he plays for them.”
According to the journalist, something that has recently determined the spread of this technique, “which at first was ignored, or at least very little used, is humiliation, which is two-faced , because its original victim is the goalkeeper, but can also be the pitcher “.
“And that’s the most interesting thing, I think, because if the goalie is the one being mocked… well, the next day he’s done. But if the shooter fails, if he sends it to the clouds or, much worse, the goalkeeper takes the ball, that can be fatal.”
The truth is that that day of 1976, Panenka wanted to entertain the public and, as he said in Bello and Lyttleton’s book, he saw in that penalty a reflection of his personality .
“I wanted to give the fans something new, I wanted to create something that would give them something to talk about.”
“I wanted football to be more than just kicking a ball”.
And how did he do it!
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