The famous Panenka penalty exists because one goalkeeper kept winning beer and chocolate from him

Every soccer fan knows what a Panenka is. A gentle chip down the middle as the goalkeeper dives helplessly to one side.

It is one of the sport’s boldest skills – as you look really daft if it doesn’t come off – and is copied by the cream of the crop, from Zinedine Zidane to Andrea Pirlo and Lionel Messi. Luis Suárez showed us just how it was done last night for Inter Miami.

What many people don’t appear to know is that the famous penalty was invented because Antonín Panenka got tired of losing beer and chocolate.

How beer and chocolate changed soccer history

Long before his iconic moment at the 1976 European Championship, Panenka regularly stayed behind after training with Bohemians Praha goalkeeper Zdeněk Hruška. The pair would compete in penalty contests, with the loser buying the winner either a glass of beer or a bar of chocolate.

There was just one problem. Hruška was an outstanding goalkeeper and kept winning.

Panenka later admitted he was “constantly paying him,” so he began lying awake at night trying to think of a way to beat his teammate. Eventually he came up with a deceptively simple solution: instead of blasting the ball into a corner, he would wait for the goalkeeper to dive before delicately chipping it straight down the middle.

The new technique worked so well that the tables quickly turned.

“I started to gain weight because I was winning the bets,” Panenka joked years later, having finally stopped buying all that beer and chocolate, and enjoying the winnings more often.

Here’s that original Panenka when it made its formal debut.

The penalty that made Panenka immortal

Panenka spent around two years perfecting the technique in training before unveiling it on the biggest possible stage.

After the 1976 European Championship final between Czechoslovakia and West Germany finished 2-2, the title was decided by a penalty shootout. With the defending champions having just missed, Panenka stepped up knowing his kick would win the trophy.

Rather than playing safe, he trusted the move that had first earned him chocolate bars and beers against Hruška. Goalkeeper Sepp Maier dived, the ball floated gently into the middle of the net, and one of soccer’s most unforgettable moments was born.

Nearly 50 years later, the chipped penalty still bears his name.

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