The Czechoslovak Football Legend Antonin
Panenka, 71, who was admitted Wednesday for COVID-19 in an intensive care unit (ICU), he is “stabilized” although with mechanical respiration, the club reported today Bohemians
1905, of which he is honorary president.
“The president of the club is stabilized and today he will be transferred to a hospital in Prague, where he will be treated under the supervision of his family doctor,” explained a spokesman for the Bohemians.
Panenka
was admitted two days ago to the general hospital of Benes, 46 kilometers from Prague, where you were diagnosed COVID-19, and was later taken to the ICU.
After two days of uncertainty, the ex-footballer has come out of danger and is confident in his recovery, as his wife has told the club, Vlasta, who is next to him.
“Tonda says that he is going to fight and that he is very excited to return to normality,” the club quoted his wife in a statement.
Although it is stabilized, Panenka needs “oxygen supply” mechanically, continues the Bohemians statement, which states that the player still “breathes badly and has a strong cough.”
Panenka began his sports career in the Bohemians in 1968 and played 678 games with the Verdiblanco team until 1981, when he signed for the Fast
of
Vienna, the club where he ended his career in 1985.
It was international with the selection of the extinct Czechoslovakia on 59 occasions, in which he scored 12 goals.
Panenka, known for his unmistakable mustache, became a star when he scored a penalty with a soft, choppy kick down the middle in the final of the Eurocup
of
Yugoslavia 1976.
That goal gave his country the title in the final against Germany and to him a place in the history of football by baptizing one of the most imitated and risky throws from the eleven meters.