Antonín Panenka stares at the phone screen displaying Troy Parrott missing a Panenka-style penalty. He chuckles.
“First, I have to say that it was probably badly practised. In my case, I practised it for one or two years before [the 1976 Euro final in] Belgrade. You have to do it almost automatically, and this was probably not the case,” Panenka says.
“I think it was a sudden idea of this guy, too, to use the chip. But the chip was too aggressive. You have to be really soft to get the ball to the middle of the net. I would say that he hadn’t practised it at all before.”
The Czechs believe in practising penalties and confirmed on Wednesday that they were continuing the habit before Thursday night’s World Cup playoff against Ireland.
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Maybe it’s coincidence, but they also have the best penalty shootout record in world football. Between the Czech Republic and Czechoslovakia they have taken 20 penalties in shootouts and scored all 20.
Among those 20 shootout penalties is arguably the most famous penalty scored, when Panenka floated the ball into the middle of Sepp Maier’s net, as Maier dived out of the way, to win the 1976 European Championship for Czechoslovakia.
Speaking on Wednesday at the home ground of Bohemians 1905, the top-division club where he is chairman, the 77-year old says: “If I had one crown [koruna] for every interview I did about the penalty, I would be a millionaire and wouldn’t be sitting here today with you.”
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In 1976 it still hadn’t occurred to anybody to do what Panenka did against West Germany in the European Championship final in Belgrade – or if it had then the rest of the world hadn’t noticed.
“I had used it in the Czech league, but the Germans did not have spies here to know that I will take this sort of penalty. So my position was very good. I knew not 100 per cent, but 1,000 per cent, that if I was selected to kick the penalty I would be successful.
The risk profile is different now that everyone wants to do a Panenka at least once. Andrea Pirlo (Euro 2012 v England) and Francesco Totti (Euro 2000 v Holland) are among those who have executed it to perfection.
This makes the inventor of the technique proud. “I’m really glad and happy that so many famous football players – I would add Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic – have tried to emulate my penalty. I’m really happy that my idea didn’t die away. The only regret is they sent no royalties.”
Brahim Diaz (2026 Afcon v Senegal) and Parrott (November 25 v Twente) were less fortunate with their efforts. Today’s goalkeepers often just stand and wait.
Panenka says he only ever missed one. “It was a small village in southern Bohemia. There was heavy rain and the goalkeeper was standing in a pool of water, not moving anywhere.”
When Ireland arrived in Prague on Tuesday afternoon it turned out they had blundered across a crime scene. The same day, Czech police arrested dozens of people as part of an investigation into match-fixing, which is the biggest football scandal since the fall of Communism.
Oddly enough, there were no questions about the scandal in the Czech prematch press conference. There was instead lots of determined-sounding failure-is-not-an-option talk from coach Miroslav Koubek and new captain Ladislav Krejcí. This is apparently no time to be dwelling on negatives.
Two days ago they had the Czech Player of the Year gala, so the Czechs were joking that the cops had waited until all the football people had gathered in one place to make the arrests.
Was Panenka surprised to hear that Czech football was apparently riddled with corruption?
“I was really surprised. I was surprised, especially by the fact that they started the whole affair between voting the player of the year and the most important game of the year for us maybe. What makes me a bit happier, at least, is that it doesn’t involve either the national team or any of the biggest clubs in the country. But still, from my point of view, it’s not a big consolation.”
I ask Panenka if anyone ever asked him to fix a match. Our translator Petr listens to his response and says: “He says, ‘I wouldn’t say, in my time, I experienced something like that’. He doesn’t sound very certain, I would say... .”
Panenka went on: “But there was a big difference in my time. There were almost no betting companies. And what makes the match-fixing even worse now is the betting, this new phenomenon for us after the revolution.”
Corruption aside, what disappoints Panenka about modern football is the lack of expressiveness in the game. “I still love football. I really like being part of it, not play football, but being around it. Unfortunately, the football itself is not as beautiful as it used to be. It’s tactically rigid.
“There are no players who can give real joy to fans, technical skills, long-distance shots. It’s what I really miss in today’s football. So I’m still part of it, but the football itself, it’s not what it used to be. I think we gave much more joy to fans than today’s players.”
He sounded hopeful, rather than confident, that the Czech team could nonetheless give some joy to its fans on Thursday night. “The result will be obviously what counts, not the style of play. We will see.”
