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The former Czechoslovakia international’s penalty against West Germany has become part of football history

When Antonin Panenka walked up to take his penalty in the 1976 European Championship final shootout against West Germany, very few of the 30,790 spectators present would have realised they were about to witness one of the most iconic spot-kicks the game has ever seen.

With Uli Hoeness having just missed his penalty, Panenka was given the chance to win the tournament and he delivered with a daring chipped penalty that has entered football vocabulary.

More than 50 years later, Panenka has spoken to FourFourTwo about the political setting around the final, the pressure he was under and the confidence he needed to try one of the boldest penalties football has ever produced.

“The 1976 European Championship was held in Yugoslavia, with four teams – West Germany and the Netherlands from Western Europe, Yugoslavia and us from the East,” Panenka says. “The 1970s were a politically charged time and, on that occasion, the two political blocs were meeting each other on the pitch. We beat the Netherlands in the semi-finals, and West Germany beat Yugoslavia.

“In the final in Belgrade, we felt like outsiders because the Germans were the reigning world and European champions. On paper, they were stronger. Even so, we certainly did not feel inferior – we had nothing to lose.”

Before the match, the West Germany squad wanted to avoid the chance of a replay, and that led to an unusual request which eventually set the stage for Panenka’s moment of glory.

“Before the match, something unusual happened, with direct consequences on the final outcome,” the 77-year-old goes on. “I think it came from some German players wanting to go on holiday as soon as possible – before kick-off, we were asked whether we would agree to go to penalties if the match ended in a draw, instead of playing a replay. Naturally, we agreed, because nobody was keen on facing Germany twice, and in the end we made the right call.

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“The match ended 2-2 and, after a run of penalties that were all converted, Uli Hoeness smashed his over the bar. At that stage, it was my turn to take the decisive penalty, to win us our first major international trophy. I felt amazingly calm. Months earlier, I had already decided that if I ever had to take a penalty, I would do it my way, with a chip. I had done it many times in the league and never missed, but footage of our matches never reached Western Europe, so nobody knew how I took penalties.

“I was confident because I had practised endlessly from the spot with Bohemians. After training, the goalkeeper and I used to bet a chocolate bar or a beer on penalty shootouts. He was very good, and at first he saved many of them, until I began using my little chip down the middle. From then on, there was no contest any more – because I kept winning, I even started putting on a little weight!

“Of course, if I had missed my penalty in the European Championship final in that manner, I would have made both my country and the Communist Party look foolish, and they probably would have forced me to work in a factory, or even down a mine for the next 50 years. But I knew that it was the right thing to do at that moment.

“I remember discussing it at the camp with my room-mate Koloman Gogh, telling him that if I got the chance, I would definitely do it. He almost lost his mind and told me that if I tried it, he would not let me back into our room afterwards. The story spread. Even goalkeeper Ivo Viktor disagreed with me, but my other team-mates and our coach Vaclav Jezek told me to do whatever felt right. Well, I stepped up and did it. Sepp Maier dived to his left and the ball floated gently, exactly as I knew it would, into the middle of the net, slowly and mockingly.

“There were several consequences. First of all, we won the European Championship, which remains the only major title our national team has ever won. Then Koloman stayed true to his word and would not let me back into our room to sleep! Thankfully, two friends from my hometown, who had emigrated to Canada and become quite wealthy, had bought tickets for the final, as well as a room in a beautiful hotel in the city centre. I ended up sleeping there – the next morning, I woke up and had breakfast with champagne and caviar for the first and only time in my life!

“The night before that, I was the only player still wearing our national team shirt during the trophy ceremony. My team-mates had already swapped shirts with the Germans – I had not even thought about that, completely carried away by the joy of that victory and the way it happened. Purely by chance, I became a hero back home, not only from a football point of view, but politically as well, as an example of loyalty to my country and its colours. Later, even an audio recording surfaced of our country’s president asking who had actually won the trophy, given that the podium seemed to be almost entirely full of West Germany shirts!”

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