Lionel Messi may arguably be the greatest soccer player of all time, but his penalty kick history is not a highlighted part of his decorated résumé.
During Tuesday’s World Cup Round of 16 match against Egypt, the Argentine star had an opportunity to level the match in the 21st minute. Enzo Fernández was fouled by Haissem Hassan in the Pharaohs’ penalty box, earning Argentina a free kick.
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Up stepped Messi, who leads the World Cup Golden Boot race over Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland with eight goals. Egypt goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir would deny him the tiebreaking goal.
The all-time leading goal scorer in World Cups has seemingly found penalty kicks to be one of the very few areas where he’s been unable to succeed. According to Opta, Messi has had eight penalty kick attempts in his career in the tournament. He has failed to score on half of them.
Tuesday’s denial was Messi’s second missed penalty kick of the tournament. He is now the first player to miss multiple penalties in a single World Cup (excluding shootouts after extra time.)
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Ghana‘s Asamoah Gyan (2006, 2010) is the only other player to miss multiple penalties over a World Cup career.
Messi’s World Cup penalty woes began at the 2018 tournament. He missed a chance in the 64th minute against Iceland, which would have broken a 1-1 deadlock.
Four years ago in Qatar, Messi had five penalty kick opportunities. He would score on four of them, including one in the final against France. His only miss came during a 2-0 win over Poland in the group stage.
Messi could have opened the scoring in their group play finale in 2026 against Austria, but his attempt was fired wide of the post. He would score twice during a 2-0 win.
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It might be something in the air in this tournament as players have converted just 32 of 49 penalties in this World Cup. That is a 65.3% conversion rate, the lowest since 1966, per Opta.
Penalty kicks may not be Messi’s thing, but in-game heroics certainly have been. After the PK miss, Argentina scored three times over the final 13 minutes of the game during a dramatic 3-2 victory over Egypt. Messi, of course, scored the equalizer in the 83rd minute.
