Argentine star striker Lionel Messi missed a penalty in the 38th minute of a Group C match against Poland on Wednesday, November 30. 

As Messi became the first player in history to have 2 penalties saved in the World Cup, he was badly dragged on Twitter for not scoring for his side in such a crucial match. 

“No wonder Messi fans are obsessed with excluding penalties, their GOAT can’t score them,” one of them said, while another noted, “Shame on you VAR & FIFA. Giving the softest penalty in the World to try let Argentina and Lionel Messi through the World Cup. Disgraceful Decision. Never a Penalty in a Million Years. And Lionel Messi still missed. They tried to help you and you failed. You are not the GOAT Pessi.”

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Another noted, “They call him Penaldo as if Messi can score a penalty himself.” One more commented, “Critical match, missed penalty, this match has the potential to complete the circle of Messi crying in an Argentina shirt.” Another said, “Messi penalty saved, justice done after ludicrous award in the first place.”

Messi’s penalty record

So far in his career, Messi has taken a total of 132 penalties. However, he has missed quite a handful of them.

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Despite Messi failing to score from the penalty spot, in the first leg of their Champions League Round of 16, Paris Saint-Germain edged out Real Madrid 1-0 back on February 15. Although he created chances and spearheaded PSG’s attack against Los Blancos he could not find the back of the net. In addition to that, he ended up missing a penalty.

That was the 29th time that Messi failed to score from a penalty and four of them was when he was playing for the national team. Out of them, 24 were while he was in Barcelona, and one was wearing PSG colors. So far he has scored 102 of them, with an impressive conversion rate of 77 percent.

The first-ever penalty that he missed was against Villarreal in a Copa del Rey tie on Jan 31, 2008. This has little impact though as Barcelona won the tie 1-0. Out of 29 times that Messi missed a penalty, his team won on 20 occasions.