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The original was posted on /r/soccer by /u/Sparky-moon on 2026-02-10 13:40:25+00:00.
Original Title: Antonín Panenka’s analysis of Brahim’s penalty in the AFCON final: "It took me two years, training every day, to take that penalty. I watched the AFCON final and I am convinced that the player, Brahim, had not trained as hard as he should have to take it like that.”
Brahim will never forget the Africa Cup final. He will always remember the Panenka-style penalty he took… sending the ball straight into the hands of goalkeeper Mendy. He took the penalty in the 90+24th minute with the score at 0-0, after much controversy and with the Senegalese team, upset by the penalty decision, leaving the field and then returning. Had he scored, Morocco would almost certainly have been crowned champions. But the goalkeeper saved it and Pape Gueye then scored the decisive goal in extra time.
“It took me two years of training every day to take that penalty.”
Panenka
Now, a few weeks after that encounter, Antonín Panenka, the creator of that way of shooting from 11 meters, analyzes Brahim’s execution in the Africa Cup final. No one better than him to do so. “It took me two years, training every day, to take that penalty. I watched the Africa Cup of Nations final and I am convinced that the player, Brahim, had not trained as hard as he should have to take it like that. The idea came to him at that moment and he tried it. That’s why I think he didn’t score,” he said.
Award and anniversary
On Monday, Antonín Panenka received an award from the magazine that bears his name, ‘Panenka’, in the year that marks the 50th anniversary of the famous penalty kick that won Czechoslovakia the European Championship, a technique that has since been named after him and used by many players.
In a European Championship final, you don’t think about laughing at your opponent. I love football, my intention was not to laugh at anyone.
Panenka
Sometimes, you hear people say that taking a ‘Panenka-style’ penalty kick is almost disrespectful to the opponent. However, Antonín refutes that argument. “I can’t agree with that. At that moment, I thought it was the most likely way to score a goal.
In a European Championship final, you don’t think about laughing at your opponent. I love football, my intention was not to laugh at anyone. I thought it was the best way to score a goal,” he explained.