Antonín Panenka says Real Madrid and Spain defender Sergio Ramos is the best exponent of the penalty-taking style that bears his name.
The 32-year-old La Liga star, who is now considered his club’s nominal spot-kick taker, has famously channelled his inner Panenka in the past.
But what is a panenka?
Simply put, the Panenka is a penalty kick-taking style where the player delicately chips the ball over the opposing goalkeeper close to the centre of the goal, having first deceived them by feigning to go right or left with power in the run-up.
It was first used by Antonín Panenka in the 1976 Uefa European Championship final against German goalkeeper Sepp Maier to win the trophy for the now defunct Czechoslovakian national team.
Panenka, 69, feels Ramos stands above the rest when it comes to channeling his most famous gift to the beautiful game.
“I love it [when Ramos does it] and I think that he has done it several times already, like in the European Championship in 2012,” he said, according to Spanish news outlet Marca.
“I think he could be my best ‘imitator’, the player who best takes Panenka penalties because he has done it so much.
“People know about it but he still manages to do it again and that is great. For me, I practised it for two years before the Euros in ’76. I just noticed that all goalkeepers always dived to one side or the other so it would be nice to put it down the middle.
“Our goalkeeper was very good at saving penalties so I was always losing bets: money, chocolates, that kind of thing.”So I started using my little trick and suddenly I started to win the bets more and more often.”I even got fat from all the chocolates I won!”
Sergio Ramos: Love him or hate him…
Since turning pro, after coming through at boyhood club Sevilla in the middle of the last decade, the Andalusian has established himself as one of the best centre-backs around. To date he’s played no fewer than 580 matches for Los Blancos, whom he joined in 2004, registering 77 goals and 37 assists in the process, while his trophy cabinet includes four European Cups and four La Liga crowns. But this has not stopped him becoming a divisive figure.
Ramos left a Vitoria Pilzen opponent with a bloodied nose through a collision in Real Madrid’s midweek Champions League win. Last year, meanwhile, he was involved in a tangle of limbs with Mohamed Salah in the Champions League final victory over Liverpool which ended the Egyptian forward’s evening early in the first half.
This prompted a war of words with Jurgen Klopp that saw Ramos say of the Reds coach: “Maybe he wants to justify himself after losing that final, because it was not the first one that he lost. He should take care of his own business.”
The post Football’s best ‘Panenka’ penalty taker right now? The man who pioneered it has his say appeared first on Squawka News.
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