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The Egyptian goalkeeper cost “The Flea” a negative number in the World Cup
A specialist in sports psychology has revealed how Egypt’s goalkeeper Mostafa Shubert scored the penalty kick that Argentine legend Lionel Messi scored during the World Cup match.
Messi scored one goal and provided one assist to lead Argentina to a 3-2 win over Egypt in the round of 16 of the Americas, Canada and Mexico 2026 World Cup last Tuesday at the Atlanta Stadium.
The match witnessed a historic moment when Mustafa Schubert slotted home Messi’s penalty, making it the Argentina star’s second miss of the current World Cup and fourth in the tournament’s history, making it the most missed ever.
The British newspaper “Daily Mail” tried to find out why Messi repeatedly missed penalties in the World Cup through a dialogue with Yair Jordet, an expert in sports psychology, a professor at the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences and the first specialist in the psychological aspect of penalty kicks.
Jurdit pointed out that Messi does not suffer from penalty kicks, as he has missed 34 of the 150 kicks he has taken in his career, with a success rate of 77%, which is within the normal range of 76-79%.
The sports psychology expert clarified that the Argentinian star vacillates between two methods of taking penalties. The former depends on the goalkeeper as he moves forward to take a slow shot, controlling the goalkeeper’s movement before choosing an angle for the shot.
As for the other method, it is independent of the goalkeeper, as he chooses a pre-determined corner and commits to shooting it, regardless of the movement of the goalkeeper, and this is the method that Messi relied on against Schubert, choosing to shoot into the left corner.
Yordit said the reason for Mustafa Schubert’s success was two things, the first being that he moved early, which gave him a great opportunity to block if the ball was hit in the corner where he was standing, which was indeed the case.
The second is that Messi himself does not have enough power and accuracy in his penalty kicks compared to other stars, English striker Harry Kane or Polish Robert Lewandowski, which makes his shots unstoppable.
Notably, Messi became the first player to miss two penalties in a single World Cup game, while Mustafa Schubert became the fourth goalkeeper to miss two in one game after scoring the first against Iran in the group stage.
