1976: PANENKA SPOT ON

UEFA EURO 1976 FINAL

YUGOSLAVIA

CRVENA ZVEZDA STADIUM, BELGRADE

CZECHOSLOVAKIA (PENS 5-3) 2-2 WEST GERMANY

One image dominates the 1976 Championship, perhaps the most famous the tournament has ever produced. Yet Antonin Panenka's extraordinary dinked penalty to seal Czechoslovakia's victory in the final was just one of many highlights from a thrilling tournament, whose four matches provided 19 goals.

The qualifying tournament saw a rampant Dutch side obliterate Belgium 7-1 on aggregate, Robert Rensenbrink netting a first leg hat-trick in Rotterdam.

The USSR missed out on the finals for the first time as they fell to a highly motivated Czechoslovak side over two legs. The Soviets froze in front of a hostile Bratislava crowd, and failed to overturn the 2-0 deficit on home turf.

The finals, in Yugoslavia, got off to a tempestuous start as three men saw red in Czecholsovakia's semi-final summit with the Netherlands.

BALKAN GOAL RUSH

Czechoslovak captain Anton Ondruš scored at both ends and the game went to extra time.

Playing ten against nine, the extra man finally paid off as goals from Nehoda and Vesely in the last five minutes decided a classic encounter, sending Czechoslovakia into the final.

In the other semi-final Yugoslavia also took the holders West Germany to an extra thirty minutes. Goal machine Gerd Müller dropped two more bombs in the 115th and 119th minutes to wrap up his hat-trick and an extraordinary 4-2 win.

After the Netherlands snatched third place with another extra time win, 3-2 over Yugoslavia, the stage was set for a fittingly exceptional final.


Goals from Dobias and Svehlik appeared to set Czechoslovakia on their way top an easy win, but the Germans, as always, fought back.

Gerd Müller reduced the deficit shortly before the half-hour mark before Hölzenbein struck two minutes from time to send the game into extra time.

This time there was to be no extra time winner, and the title went down to a penalty shoot-out.

At 4-3 to the Czechoslovaks Uli Hoeness blazed over, and Antonin Panenka stepped up for the most famous penalty of all time.

As Sepp Maier dived to his left, Panenka, under colossal pressure, chipped the ball impudently down the middle, and Czechoslovakia were European Champions.

1972: IT'S MÜLLER TIME!

UEFA EURO 1972 FINAL

BELGIUM

HEYSEL STADIUM, BRUSSELS

WEST GERMANY 3-0 SOVIET UNION

Holders Italy were not on hand to defend their European title in 1972, surprisingly defeated by Belgium over two legs in the quarter-finals.


In a repeat of the 1966 World Cup final West Germany faced a familiar foe and a painful trip down memory lane: England at Wembley.

This time they came out smiling. A Gunther Netzer-inspired 3-1 away first leg win killed the tie, and Germany were through.

The Belgians' reward for their heroics was to host the finals as the finals moved to the low countries for the first time.

With Lady Luck on a cigarette break, they drew the formidable West Germans in the last four. Despite lacking genuine class Belgium made a good account of themselves, eventually stopped by a rampant Gerd Müller. A brace from 'Der Bomber' was enough to seal a 2-1 win.

Perennial contenders the USSR took on Hungary in the other semi-final, scraping through, courtesy of a solitary Anatoly Konkov strike, to reach their third final in four tournaments.

'Der Bomber' was in no mood to spare the poor Soviets, netting two more goals as Germany cruised to an impressive, if anticlimactic, three-nil win.

Including qualifying, Müller's goal tally reached an extraordinary eleven, out of his country's fifteen, in just eight matches.

After near misses in the 1966 and 1970 World Cups, captain Franz Beckenbauer finally got his hands on some silverware.

The Belgium finals heralded a golden period of West German football, as they went on to stun Johan Cruyff's wonderful Dutch in the 1974 World Cup, and were right back in contention in 1976.