Antonín Panenka

Antonín Panenka

Antonín Panenka (born 2 December 1948 in Prague ) is a former Czechoslovak football player. He was awarded the Czechoslovak national team in 1976 European Champion.

Career

Panenka enjoyed immense popularity as a technically gifted midfielder in Czechoslovakia and Austria. He played from 1958 ( as a youth player since 1967 in the First team) until 1981 when Bohemians Prague, where Panenka offers received in this time from abroad, but could not change - only who was 32 years old and at least 45 international appearances for the Czechoslovakia had graduated, got the approval of the Association. So he moved immediately after his 32nd birthday in 1981 Rapid Wien, where he played until 1985 172 duty games in which he scored 77 goals. Although he was highly doped offers from Spain, Switzerland and Belgium, he opted for Rapid, because he thought he could prevail most in the Austrian league and because it is a Czech school was in Vienna, walking his children could. His other stations: 1985-1987 VSE St. Pölten, 1987-1989 SK Slovan Vienna, 1989-1991 ASV Hohenau, 1991-1993 Kleinwiesenhart village. Panenka ended his active career so until the age of 45. Subsequently, he was first an assistant coach at his old club Bohemians Prague, later club president. His play earned him a nickname: Because of its great overview Panenka was also called "The Man with the radar eyes ".

The Panenka Lifter

He gained special prominence during the night of Belgrade, when he scored the winning penalty in the penalty shootout in the final of the 1976 European for Czechoslovakia against the team of the Federal Republic of Germany. After Uli Hoeness had chased his kick over the crossbar, Panenka showed nerves of steel: Instead of shooting places and at full tilt into a corner of the goal, he speculated successful that Germany's goalkeeper Sepp Maier would jump into a corner of the net and shoveled his right foot under the ball to Lupfen the ball in a slight arc in the center of the goal. Such geschossener penalty is still referred to as Panenka Lifter. Among well-known footballers who later applied those variant include Zinedine Zidane ( in the 2006 World Cup final ), Francesco Totti, Thierry Henry, Sebastián Abreu, Andrea Pirlo, Franck Ribery and Sergio Ramos. There were also some unsuccessful attempts of Neymar, Mickaël Landreau, Antonio Calle, Rogerio Ceni, Maicosuel, Marko Devic, Graham Zusi, also Andrea Pirlo and Robin van Persie.

Achievements

In addition to winning the title at the 1976 European Panenka also took part in the European Championships in Italy in 1980, and at the 1982 World Cup in Spain. His success at club level were the Austrian league title with Rapid Vienna in 1982 and 1983, the OFB - cup victories in 1983, 1984 and 1985 and reaching the final of the Champions Cup Winners' Cup against Everton ( 1-3 defeat ) 1985.