The reason behind Messi’s repeated penalty misses

Lionel Messi's penalties in the 2026 World Cup have become like a cry in the forest, all of them seem to be fruitless attempts. The Argentine captain has missed penalties twice out of 2 penalties.

However, in the previous tournament, Messi scored 4 goals from penalties, and if you add the shootout, he scored 6 times from penalties. At that time, Messi used a very intelligent strategy. He would evade the goalkeeper, take shots at the right time and stay mentally calm.

Basically, he would take two types of shots. One was a clever side foot shot, where he would aim at the goalkeeper well and take a shot in the opposite direction. The other was a powerful instep shot, where speed was the real weapon.

When starting a run, Messi would take small steps. This allowed him to control his speed. He could also understand the goalkeeper's movements well.

Without looking at the ball, he would keep his eyes on the goalkeeper. He would try to understand which way the goalkeeper was leaning. Once the goalkeeper had set the direction, Messi would gently send the ball to the opposite corner. The speed of this type of shot was usually between 40 and 75 kilometers per hour. Here, the real thing was the accuracy of the aim rather than the power. He scored goals with this technique against Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands and France.

However, if the goalkeeper was standing still or caught his technique, Messi would walk in a different direction. At that time, he would start running in a straight line. Without looking at the goalkeeper, he would keep his eyes on the ball. This would make it possible to put his foot on the ball correctly. Then he would take a powerful shot. The speed of that shot would often exceed 100 kilometers per hour and it would hit the top corner of the goal. Since the shot was so fast, even if the goalkeeper jumped in the right direction, he would have nothing to do. This method, however, had a 50 percent success rate, and while he failed against Poland, he succeeded against Croatia.

The Argentine captain did not use the first of the two tricks in the 2022 World Cup in this World Cup. He took penalties against both Austria and Egypt with great force, the first going over the bar, the second being saved. It seems that Messi is failing from penalties like this because he did not use the first trick.