Antonín Panenka

* 1948

  • "At that time, I lived in a room with Ivo Viktor. Of course, we had enough rest and we discussed various situations, matches, opponents. He may have been the only person who betrayed me from the idea of kicking the penalty in such a way. He said that I couldn't do it in such a tense situation. He even said to me, 'If you kick it like this, I won't let you in at night!' So, I'm glad he did let me in at half past five in the morning, it took a while, but it was OK, he finally let me in. I experienced one more interesting thing there. About four boys came to see me, with whom I grew up in Vinohrady and they emigrated to America and Canada then. They came to see me at the European Championships, they lived in the same hotel as us. When we were European champions, there was a gala dinner after the match. We had some champagne and some beer, it was such a free night. So, we went with those guys from Vinohrady to a bar and we stayed there almost till the morning. For the first and for the last time I had breakfast as they say 'classic' breakfast - caviar and champagne. I probably won't be able to do it anymore."

  • "When we got home, we felt a little bit anxious. I felt that even though I had a name and a position, I was still so little here, and that they could do whatever they wanted with me, with us. It happened to me several times when crossing the border, when they found out that I had a few crowns they wanted to take my passport, because they thought that I was carrying money and things like that. It was typical for them - to degrade a man and harm him. Whereas, when we crossed the border into Austria, optimism fell on us, we felt free, we knew that they would leave us alone, that there would be no such things. Even the children felt it and said: 'We cross the border and everything is nice here. Fields tidy, villages nice.' It was a completely different world, really like waving with a magic wand. I was happy at home, but so many times a man was humiliated. At the border, they even stripped me completely naked once. I was the best player in Austria and in this way they wanted to show their power. It was terribly humiliating and unpleasant."

  • "I came home and in the evening I received a telegram: 'Come here, you are nominated for the national team.' It was a huge surprise for me, it was not usual to go from the second league to the national team. I accepted it with pleasure. The next day I went to a meeting. I think that we were flying to Copenhagen in the afternoon or the following day. They told me, 'You have to put on a suit like everyone else.' They took me to a warehouse somewhere and said, 'We only have one suit of Olda Urban here.' Olda Urban was a two-meter strong man, a huge body, and when I took his jacket, I had it as a coat. When I took the pants, I rolled them up about twelve times so that they fit in my waist. I looked like I had a swimming ring there. In such clothes I went to Denmark for the qualification, but I didn't get the opportunity there, we played 1: 1. Then I started the match in Scotland, it was an incredible debut for me. I had never played in front of a hundred thousand people, in front of such a visit, in such an atmosphere. I played at Bohemians, where only eleven fourteen thousand people went. The match with the Scots was important, they had an incredible name. I was done. As we entered the pitch, Jordan, a Manchester United player, came to me and said, 'Vrr!' He had no teeth, only two and otherwise a completely empty mouth. You could have knocked me down with a feather, I got so scared. It was autumn, terribly cold. The stadium got full in an hour and a half before the match, hundred thousand people. The fans had short sleeves, red hands, red funny faces and sang. The Salvation Army was running around the pitch, carrying the fainted people on stretchers. When I saw it while warming up, I thought to myself: I may not even start playing. I was shaking like a leaf."

  • "I remember that we got to Náměstí Míru, where there were Russian tanks from Londýnská Street, from Bělehradská street. A lot of the boys - I wasn't so active - threw trash cans at them, threw cobblestones. They were against them. Suddenly, the tanks started going ahead and they began to push people and the whole Náměstí Míru was crammed into the church of St. Ludmila. There was silence really like in a church, it was crowded with people. There was only one aisle. Silence like in a church. Someone came with a submachine gun, he had a reed and he slapped it in his hand. They chose someone and examined their hands. And they found out that those who had dirty hands were throwing cobblestones. So, they picked them up and took them somewhere. It was blessing in disguise, that they chose me too. Fortunately, I didn't throw the cobblestones. My hands were clean, so they let me go. Perhaps, it was fate that I didn't have my hands dirty, for example from something else. Otherwise, I might not be here right now. No one knows."

  • "Before I started, I already almost finished, because I got a ball in the eye at the winter tournament in the Tatra Mountains in Smíchov. I didn't see it and they took me in a jersey right to a hospital, where I stayed for two months. I had to undergo quite a complicated eye surgery. Fortunately, it turned out well and I never doubted that I would be able to play football. I was optimistic about it, so it turned out well. I must say that the professor who operated on my eye said, 'It must have been a big punch, it looks like that a horse kicked you!' I just got a sharp ball that was covered in glazed frost and slag in my face without being able to react. My eye was open so I couldn't see. At that time, it was said that when a person got a ball in the face, in the nose, it was said that he was smoking. I got it in my nose and the boys laughed and said, 'Have an American cigarette!' And I didn't see, so I didn't laugh that much."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 13.01.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:55:18
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Tipsport for Legends
  • 2

    Praha, 05.02.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 02:08:04
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Tipsport for Legends
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

He rejected emigration to Austria. He didn‘t play marbles there with anyone

Antonín Panenka as a teenager with a trophy for the best scorer of a football tournament, 1964
Antonín Panenka as a teenager with a trophy for the best scorer of a football tournament, 1964
zdroj: Memory of the Nations studio

Antonín Panenka was born on December 2, 1948 in Prague to Antonia and Bohumil Panenka. He had two older brothers and an older sister. He came from a working-class family that lived in an apartment building in Vinohrady in Prague. Antonín was led to football by his father, a former motorcycle racer. Antonín started playing for Bohemians pupils (at that time the team had the official name TJ Spartak Prague Stalingrad) in 1958. After primary school he trained as a lathe operator at ČKD Prague. In August 1968, he took part in a demonstration against the Soviet occupiers in Náměstí Míru. Its participants were pushed by soldiers with tanks into the church of St. Ludmila, where they checked Antonín‘s hands if they are dirty from throwing cobblestones or not. He had them clean, so the soldiers let him go. In the 1968/69 season, he made his mark in the Bohemians first-league team. He suffered severe eye injuries in January 1972 and was not allowed to play football for six months after a difficult operation. In 1973, the coach Václav Ježek nominated him for the national team. His premiere took place in the autumn of the same year in a qualifying match for the World Cup in Scotland. In 1976, as a member of the Czechoslovak basic eleven, he won the title of European champion. In the final match with Germany, he scored a goal in the decisive penalty by a so-called Panenka kick - a slow arc into the middle of the goal. He won a bronze medal with the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic team at the European Championships in Italy in 1980. In 1981, he transferred from Bohemians to Rapid Vienna, with which he won the Austrian League twice and once the Austrian Cup in four and a half years. He lived in Vienna with his wife and two children. The Czechoslovak embassy forbade his son to join an Austrian kindergarten so that he would not be able to experience the capitalist ideology. During the crossing of the border with Austria, Czechoslovak customs officers repeatedly humiliated him, once stripped him naked during the inspection. In Austria he played in lower competitions until 1994. In the Czech Republic he did business in a confectionery and a wine bar. He worked as an assistant coach at Bohemians and served as honorary president at the club. For his football skills he received the state award for merits for construction in 1976 and in 2008 the medal for merits of the 1st degree. In 2020, he suffered from a covid disease, spent eight days in hospital and recovered. In 2021 he lived in Nespeky near Benešov.