How many penalties has Messi missed for Barcelona and PSG?
FT Desk
- Updated: 15 Feb 2022 15:45 CST
- 3 min read
Paris Saint-Germain fans breathed an almighty sigh of relief in the 60th minute of their Champions League clash with Real Madrid.
After darting into the opposing box, Kylian Mbappe took the slightest of touches to bolt towards the touch line and was then duly brought down by Daniel Carvajal.
After an hour of torment and frustration, it seemed as though the French giants had finally earned a breakthrough. And Lionel Messi was going to step up and provide the finishing touches.
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Of course, as we all know, that isn’t what happened. Messi did indeed step up but before the huge mass of Thibaut Courtois, the Argentina international curled the ball to the right and watched it hit off the Madrid shot-stopper.
However, as eagle-eyed observers of the forward will already know, this isn’t exactly a rare occurrence for Messi.
Over his career, Messi has scored 77% of his penalties, which is almost exactly average. Granted, the only thing he's average at.
— Grace Robertson 🏳️⚧️ (@GraceOnFootball) February 15, 2022
What is Messi’s conversion rate from penalties?
Although Messi has undoubtedly been one of the best players in the history of football and one of the game’s most prolific goalscorers, the Argentine forward does seem to have a weakness when it comes to shots from the penalty spot.
Indeed, Tuesday night’s miss against Madrid was the 30th of his career and when we compare that to how many he’s scored it certainly makes for some interesting reading.
Last time Messi faced Courtois, he smacked it off the crossbar… this time he smacks it off Courtois…
— Gabriele Marcotti (@Marcotti) February 15, 2022
Over the course of his career at Barcelona and now PSG, Messi has converted 84 goals in 80 matches, which have proved to be the winning goal on 25 occasions.
<.center>LIONEL MESSI HAS A PENALTY SAVED BY THIBAUT COURTOIS ❌ pic.twitter.com/RU3OlqQuLx
— GOAL (@goal) February 15, 2022
As such, that now means that Messi has a conversion rate from the penalty spot of 73.6 percent.
According to modern metrics, the expected goals figure from a penalty stands at 0.75, which means a player should be expected to score from that spot on the pitch 75 percent of the time.
Which, apparently, means that not only is Messi’s penalty taking below par in comparison to his other talents for putting the ball in the back of the net, but it’s also lower than the average conversion rate across the sport.
