PANENKA by Chris Nee
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PANENKA by Chris Nee Rapid Wien have won the to retire. Anatoli Zinchenko wasn’t far behind. their fourth win on the bounce -- finally Austrian title 32 times, eight Both played key roles in Rapid’s champion- dragged Rapid to the top of the table. By the SK more than nearest rivals -- in ship win. time his team reached the summit Panenka both senses -- FK Austria Wien. Austria took had scored seven league goals, all but the home the championship in 2012/13, five But alongside these big names was a man first in victories including two against Grazer years after Rapid’s most recent success. whose own name became more famous than in September and two more in a 6-1 disman- Neither are likely to topple dominant Red Bull he did. A name that connects him irrevocably tling of Wiener SC. Salzburg anytime soon. to Zinedine Zidane, Sergio Ramos, Andrea Pirlo, Eden Hazard and Francesco Totti. To Four Rapid wins coincided with four winless Despite being their nation’s most successful Rogerio Ceni, Neymar, Robin van Persie and matches for Austria and Die Grün-Weißen club domestically Rapid have endured title Antonio Cassano. briefly took control before their own wobble droughts before. Before their penultimate occurred as winter became spring, seeing off triumph in 2004/05 they hadn’t won the shield They all did -- or didn’t do -- something Skocik in the process. since 1996. Antonín Panenka famously did before them. Panenka was no one-trick pony, his moment Austria took advantage and Rapid were Compared to the 1970s, though, that was a in the spotlight no single spark in an other- forced to haul them back once more. By the mere sabbatical. Rapid won the league in wise hidden career. In 1981/82 he was time the two kicked off on 4th May 1982, 1960, 1964, 1967 and 1968. And then... instrumental in Rapid finally ending Austria Nuske’s side were within striking distance. nothing. Wien’s dominance and taking the title back to Strike they did. the green districts of the capital. Die Grün-Weißen lifted the Austrian Cup a A bumper crowd at Vienna’s Ernst Happel few times but the championship eluded them Panenka never reached the truly elite levels Stadion watched on as Austria and Rapid until 1981/82. They finished three points clear of European club football but he was highly played out a tense first half. Krankl, inevita- of Austria Wien thanks to an ability to draw regarded as a creative, cultured midfield bly, was the man who snapped the atmos- instead of lose when things were starting to player. His intelligent weight of pass and his phere with a goal a couple of minutes before go awry. ability to fire longer balls accurately around the break. Gröss made it 2-0 to Rapid on the the park made him a threat. He was a con- hour, putting the visitors firmly in charge. With They’d come close in the intervening years. ductor, dropping deep to pick up the ball and ten minutes left on the clock Panenka sealed Three points short here. Two points short popping up in every midfield position whenev- the points and more. there. But in 1981/82 Rapid turned the three- er he saw fit. point deficit of the previous season into a The 1981/82 Austrian title was effectively three-point victory over their great rivals. His impact in the attacking third made his decided by the matches between Vienna’s Austria had just won the league five times in name. He wasn’t lightning quick but he did rivals. Rapid could only lose and draw a row. pack enough of a turn of pace to escape the against Austria at home but they won both clutches of defenders when space opened away fixtures. One might even argue it all Rapid’s coach, Walter Skocik, was a former up, and he was willing to take a risk with a came down to that Rapid win in May. Rapid player and Austrian international who pass in attacking positions. The outcome was was born in the town of Schwechat in occu- unpredictable but when it worked, it worked. As final furlongs go, Rapid’s stroll to the title pied Austria in 1940. after their defeat of Austria was unimpres- Panenka’s reputation was that of a set piece sive. A 2-2 draw at Admira and a loss against In March 1982, 26 games into the Austrian specialist. He earned it with a regular supply LASK Linz prevented May 1982 from dissolv- season, Skocik left the club under a cloud of dead ball wizardry and a string of oppo- ing into a victory lap but the season ended as having apparently fallen out with the players nents desperate to avoid affording him direct it had begun: with a Panenka goal, his sec- and was replaced by Rudolf Nuske, his free kick opportunities. ond in a 5-0 win against Wacker Innsbruck. assistant. You can’t change the team, said the newspaper reports that followed. So you It was a different type of dead ball that made The first was pure Panenka. Having been have to change the coach. Panenka a European football icon and gave played into the penalty area with two minutes him the greatest triumph of his career. to go and just the Innsbruck goalkeeper to The title-winning team at his disposal was Czechoslovakia and West Germany met in beat, the Czechoslovakian performed an impressively consistent in all but Skocik’s Belgrade in the final of the UEFA European outrageous scoop, effortlessly lifting the ball final weeks. Goalkeeper Herbert Feurer, then Championships in 1976 and Václav Ježek’s over the stranded goalkeeper and dropping it in his mid-20s, would go on to rack up more team went 2-0 up only to concede a late into the net, all within the space of ten yards. than 300 matches for Rapid, as would de- equaliser. fender Heribert Weber. Johann Pregesbauer Panenka scored 13 league goals in 1981/82, was a one-club man. Bernd Krauss and Kurt With the penalty shoot-out poised at 3-3, none of them from the penalty spot. His two Garger were the other regulars at the back Ladislav Jurkemik put Czechoslovakia in front goals in Rapid’s short run to the third round of and have enjoyed long coaching careers after and Uli Hoeness missed West Germany’s the UEFA Cup, however, were both spot representing Austria as players. fourth kick. Panenka chipped in Czechoslo- kicks. vakia’s fifth. Hans Krankl was Rapid’s goalscorer, scoring Rapid retained the title and won it twice 23 times in all competitions in 1981/82 with a By the time Panenka switched from Prague consecutively again later in the decade, all handy, youthful supporting cast of Johann club Bohemians to the Austrian league in three under Otto Barić, but their real high Gröss, Christian Keglevits and Helmut Hof- 1981, Austria Vienna’s championship suc- point in the 1980s was a run in Europe. mann weighing in with some goals of their cess had grown tiresome for supporters of Panenka and Krankl were influential as their own. their city rivals. Panenka and Rapid set out to team reached the final of the 1984/85 UEFA put a stop to it. European Cup Winners’ Cup. The midfield was a similar blend of youth and experience. Reinhard Kienast, then in his The new playmaker scored their first goal of Panenka scored three times as Rapid defeat- early 20s, played 41 times. Rudolf Steinbauer the season but Rapid started with a loss at ed Besiktas in the first round -- twice from the played 30 times. Teenagers Rudi Weinhofer Sturm Graz. He scored again in September penalty spot -- and again in their comfortable and Gerald Willfurth, blooded in 1981/82, as Rapid defeated Admira to go second quarter-final win against Dynamo Dresden. both became fixtures in the Rapid midfield behind Austria. throughout the 1980s. The second round tie against Celtic? That’s a The top two stayed the same until the end of whole different story. Josef Hickersberger, meanwhile, was about November, when a 2-1 win over Grazer AK -- .