Thibaut Courtois saves Bukayo Saka’s botched attempt at a Panenka but the miss did not cost Arsenal – Getty Images/Oscar Del Pozo
It is now nearly 49 years since Antonin Panenka won the European Championship for Czechoslovakia. After Germany’s Uli Hoeness had missed in the penalty shoot-out that followed a 2-2 draw in the 1976 final, Panenka knew that if he were to score, his team would be champions.
He dashed forward towards the spot and Sepp Maier, assuming he was going to blast his shot towards a corner, made his choice and dived athletically to his left. Instead, without breaking stride, the midfielder chipped the ball straight down the middle, arcing it over the prostrate Maier. It was a penalty of such audacity, such drama, such consequence, it came to be known by its inventor’s name. Since then the Panenka has come to be regarded as football’s ultimate stroke of showbiz pizazz.
ON THIS DAY 43 years ago, the Panenka was born. The penalty taking technique made its debut on the big stage in the 1976 UEFA European Championship final. It’s named after Antonin Panenka who in the penalty shoot out dinked the ball to win the title for Czechoslovakia. #NBSSportspic.twitter.com/Cf9fqs3GWZ
— NBS Television (@nbstv) June 20, 2019
Which must make it sound decidedly curmudgeonly, then, to hope the style dies out completely before it reaches its 50th anniversary next June. But the fact is, this is a methodology that has become less about panache and more about social media postings; not so much about winning the game with aplomb, as threatening your side’s ambition with a show of witless narcissism.
Not that Bukayo Saka ultimately cost Arsenal with his wayward spot-kick on Wednesday night. Arsenal’s superiority against Real Madrid was sufficiently robust to sidestep Saka’s misguided effort. But nevertheless Saka’s manager Mikel Arteta had a point when he jokingly suggested that at half time he wanted to slap his young forward. His team were 3-0 up from the home leg, gifted an early penalty and with it the chance to put their foot firmly on the throat of their opponents. Here was an opportunity, after no more than five minutes, to drain Madrid of all resistance, to put the Champions League quarter-final to bed. Saka, though, risked it all with a Panenka which he messed up.
BUKAYO SAKA MISSES! ⛔
Real Madrid have a lifeline…
📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUKpic.twitter.com/1meC2fURLC
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) April 16, 2025
As it turned out, Arsenal won anyway, with the player himself delighting his many admirers when he gained redemption by scoring early in the second half with the kind of perfectly executed chip over Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois he had so painfully failed to deliver an hour earlier from the spot.
But then to beat the goalkeeper in that position, running forward with him diving at his feet, the chip was the only option. That was not the case when facing him from 12 yards when, as Saka normally does, he could have blasted it into the corner of the goal. This is the point about Panenkas. A penalty is, by its very nature, a risky business. The pressure is all on the taker to score. Miss and the whole enterprise can be undermined. The goalkeeper, meanwhile, is free of tension: if he makes the save, he is a hero, if he does not he is generally blameless. So to add to the jeopardy with a kick of such implicit peril is wholly unnecessary. Something which, when it works, looks brilliant on Instagram reels. But when it does not, oh dear.
And the game since 1976 has seen as many Panenka flops as successes. Sure there have been some belters. Zinedine Zidane, plopping the ball over Gianluigi Buffon in the 2006 World Cup final, or Eden Hazard keeping Chelsea in the 2019 League Cup final shoot-out against Manchester City, or perhaps most aesthetically pleasing of the all, Andrea Pirlo in the Euro 2012 quarter-final, chipping Joe Hart with a kick of such delicacy it barely made it to the back of the net as the goalkeeper lay sprawled in the corner.
Pirlo = 😍😍😍
Your favourite-ever Panenka penalty? 🤔
🇮🇹 #OTD in 2012 #EURO2020 | @azzurri | @Pirlo_officialpic.twitter.com/XTnf2UFUyA
— UEFA EURO (@UEFAEURO) June 24, 2019
But for every Pirlo (whose audacity completely undermined Hart for the rest of the shoot-out) there has been a flop. Gary Lineker in 1992, with the chance to equal Bobby Charlton’s England scoring record, hitting his penalty against Brazil with such lack of conviction it just about rolled into the goalkeeper’s hands. Or Ademola Lookman in a Premier League game in 2020 who, with the last kick of the game, failed to equalise for Fulham at West Ham with an effort that was frankly embarrassing. Or Raheem Sterling, who somehow managed to send his Panenka over the crossbar in a game against Leicester City in 2019.
98th min penalty to equalise, Ademola Lookman does this…
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/mNPmfCJ8Ik
— The MVP Podcast (@The_MVPPodcast) November 8, 2020
There is no middle way with the Panenka. It is either glorious or ridiculous, sublime or stupid. It either enraptures or infuriates. And interestingly, top penalty-takers such as Bruno Fernandes and Mohamed Salah avoid them altogether. Even Ivan Toney, among the finest exponents of the 12-yard shuffle, may only take a two-step run-up, may use his eyes to kid the keeper, may sometimes not even look at the ball. But invariably he smacks his shot into one of the corners of the net. For him, there is no messing around chipping it down the middle. Just get the job done.
Saka is a wonderful player, whose skill, charm and joie de vivre enriches the modern game. But you suspect after his experience on Wednesday night, he will be joining the list of those not keen to help the Panenka reach its half century.
