- The Best And The Most Iconic Panenka Penalties
This past weekend, we saw an audacious Panenka finish from the spot from Chelsea’s Cole Palmer, and it got us thinking about the best and most audacious Panenka penalty goals ever in football.
A Panenka penalty is a high-risk, high-reward technique in football where the penalty taker delicately chips the ball down the center of the goal usually, as the goalkeeper dives to one side. Named after Czechoslovakian player Antonin Panenka, who first executed it in the 1976 European Championship final shoot-out, it’s since become an iconic and audacious method used by confident players worldwide.
Let’s check out a few iconic Panenka penalty kicks.
Lionel Messi
Antonin Panenka himself stated that Lionel Messi’s Penenka penalty against Getafe back in 2015 was the best execution of the technique.
Lionel Messi expertly lobbed Getafe goalkeeper from the spot with pure class and ease to open the scoring for Barcelona.
Alexis Sanchez
Staying in 2015, Lionel Messi’s teammate, Alexis Sanchez also scored a ballsy Panenka against Argentine in the final of the Copa América. Sanchez was the hero for Chile, as they also won that final, with Messi’s Argentina missing out.
Sebastian Abreu
Look away now, Ghanaians. At the end of one of the most controversial matches in recent history of the FIFA World Cup, Sebastien Abreu settled the game also with a cool Panenka.
After Luis Suárez had intentionally handled a goal-bound attempt in the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup, and Asamoah Gyan missed the resulting penalty, the game headed to penalty shoot-out. Abreu broke millions of African hearts with a sweetly executed Panenka penalty. Cruel, but Iconic.
Andrea Pirlo
The best Panenka penalty I have ever seen. A penalty shoot-out in the quarter-finals of EURO 2012, and up stepped Italian maestro Andrea Pirlo, who executed an orgasmic Panenka spot-kick that wowed everyone. Rumours have it that Joe Hart is probably still scrambling.
Zinedine Zidane
The Balls!! The Absolute Bald balls to score a panenka against the best goalkeepers in the world, in a World Cup Final, in his last match ever!
It was not as smooth or aesthetically pleasing as Andrea Pirlo’s but, Wow. The Bald Genius was cold with that, and he also belongs on this list.
Antonin Panenka
The Originator. Antonin Panenka shocked the world when he slightly lobbed a penalty in the final of the EUROS back in 1976.
Panenka scored more than 30 goals that way in his career.
His audacity, creativity and technique has helped produced one of the most distinctive penalty techniques in world football, and that is legendary.
