If Antonin Panenka has his way, Mo Salah The inventor of the chip-shot penalty named after him would have paid royalties to the former Czech midfielder.
Panenka scored the last of five spot-kicks taken by Czechoslovakia to win his country the Euro 1976 title against West Germany. Panenka even tried to get a patent for his creation. But the officials were not amused, he said on the 50th anniversary of the botched spot-kick.
Plenty of high-quality panenca crunches have arrived at the moment. Egypt won their first knockout match at the FIFA World Cup, beating Australia 4–2 on penalties, with Salah scoring the third goal along with Panenka.
Australia brought in their penalty specialist Matt Ryan where Mohamed Salah normally takes penalties.
But Mohamed Salah had different ideas with Penanka. 🥶 pic.twitter.com/anN8fZ9Qo4
— Samuel (@SamueILFC) 4 July 2026
When Salah prepared to strike in the shootout after the game was tied 1-1 after extra-time, he appeared to hit a bloody shot into the corner. The Liverpool legend took a few steps to his right and then angled in from a short distance. But instead of unleashing the power, he chipped the ball with his left foot into the middle of the net, where it would have stood had not Australian goalkeeper Matthew Ryan dived to his left.
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Now, watch the footage of the first Panenka. Antonin couldn’t get in but ran at full speed from a few meters before centering the ball.
“I would score with 100 per cent confidence. I was 1,000 per cent confident,” he told The Guardian on the 50th anniversary of his daring effort.
German goalkeeper Sepp Maier hasn’t spoken to Panenka in more than three decades.
It helped that in those days of limited TV footage, panenka was a novelty outside of Czechoslovakia. And to think it came from betting with the goalkeeper during the club’s training session. The goalkeeper stopped one out of five shots while Panenka bought him beer and chocolates.
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Pirlo’s classic
Salah’s kick, however, was not as floaty as Antonin’s or Andrea Pirlo’s chip.
The Italian midfield maestro’s shot came into play in the Euro 2012 quarter-final against England. This after teammate Ricardo Montolivo sent a previous effort wide. Pirlo’s shot took an eternity to land in the back of the net. England goalkeeper Joe Hart was swinging and jumping too much on the line but trying to reach the ball with his extended left leg while on the ground. Hart’s jack-in-the-box strategy affected Montolivo’s focus, but Pirlo’s ice-cold nerves had nothing to do with it.
Like Pirlo, Salah decided to go with Fent at the last minute.
“I decided to do it at the last minute. If anyone is going to do it, it’s going to be me,” Salah told BBC Post Match.
24 June 2012
“Why did I take Panenka against Hart? I saw him moving weird, so I chose that shot.”
– Pirlo pic.twitter.com/pIuSzPto7o
— The Extreme Football Enthusiast (@ExtremeFootbal4) 23 June 2026
Pirlo, in his biography ‘I Think So I Play’, recalls how his teammates asked him after the shootout: “Are you crazy, Andrea?” But in his mind Pananka was the ‘safest’ and ‘most productive option’.
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“I made my decision at the last second, when I saw England goalkeeper Joe Hart doing everything in his line. I started the run, I hadn’t decided what to do. And then, he moved and my mind was made up. It was all reckless… It was the only way to hurt my chances of scoring 10 per cent.” It is said in the book.
When France were awarded a seventh-minute penalty against Italy in the 2006 World Cup final, Zinedine Zidane’s Panenka was a way to put the mental pressure on Gianluigi Buffon, the world’s best goalkeeper. Unlike Salah or Pirlo, Zidane’s panenka was not straight but to Buffon’s left. He was lucky that the ball ended up inside the goal line after hitting the bottom of the crossbar.
Le Panenka de Zidane en finale de la Coupe du monde against Buffon was one of the most emblematic penalties where the ball hit the net without stopping. pic.twitter.com/BS0JYMCV8j
— Universal Football_⚽️♟️ (@UniversalFo2ea) 3 July 2026
Others were not so lucky. The great Lionel Messi also hit the crossbar in the Copa America quarter-final against Ecuador two years ago. Recently, in the final of the Africa Cup of Nations, Morocco’s Brahim Diaz put the ball past Senegal’s goalkeeper Edouard Mendy. The moment the Confederation of African Football (CAF) had not overturned Senegal’s 1-0 extra-time win as punishment for the team’s walkout during the match was the bearing of Diaz’s cross.
There is an element of risk in executing Panenka. Miss the target with a full-blooded shot and opponents will chalk it up to nerves or bad luck. But leave Panenka and risk being labeled too brash, half-witted, clever or even selfish. But when it’s off, it’s magic.