Photo: Alexis Rosenzweig, Radio Prague International
Antonín Panenka, one of the greatest names in the history of Czech football, turns 75 on Saturday. With a famous cheeky penalty kick in 1976 he created a new soccer term – “the panenka” – that is still used all around the world to this day.
In the penalty shootout that ended the 1976 European Championship, Antonín Panenka scored the winning spot kick, securing Czechoslovakia’s only ever major trophy.
It was the manner of the kick – when he cheekily chipped it into the middle of the goal as the opposition goalkeeper dived to one side – that made the Czech a legend.
Indeed, to this day millions upon millions of football fans around the world know this technique as “a panenka”.
See the rest here.