Ben Lyttleton

The penalty kick is football in its purest form.

Just a ball, a goal, a shooter and a goalkeeper.

We see all human life in a penalty shootout.

Joy, sadness, heroes, villains, drama, excitement, euphoria, tears.

During the 50s and 60s, a lot of knockout tournament competitions, when matches were tied, were decided by lots or a coin toss.

And that was seen as unfair, usually by the losing team.

So people were looking for solutions to make it a bit fairer.

Actually, an Israeli official who worked for FIFA was the first person to put the suggestion to a proposal in front of the FIFA board.

And that was passed in the early 1970s.

The first one in England was in 1970 in the Watney Cup semi-final when Manchester United beat Hull City.

But then we saw it used more in international tournaments and the first use most famously was in the 1976 final of the European Championships.

A Czech midfield playmaker called Antonin Panenka had a penalty to win the tournament.

And so he stepped up.

And what the Germans didn't know is that he had been practicing a specific penalty for this moment for the last two years.

So he worked on a technique that involved kicking the ball down the centre of the goal, but not with speed or power, but with trickery.

So it would be a looping, slow lob down the middle of the goal.

And he ran up to the ball at speed, which was key, he thinks, to succeeding in this technique.

As he met the ball, he chipped it very slowly down the middle of the goal for probably one of the most iconic and famous penalties of all time.

Which, we all know now, took on his name, the Panenka.

And I think about the England coaches who spoke after England lost seven out of their first eight penalty shootouts.