The only weapon that betrays Messi…shocking numbers that leave Scaloni with a difficult decision

Is the Argentine coach moving to other alternatives?

Every time Lionel Messi seems to close the door on a debate about his greatness, he opens a new one that’s hard to ignore. The Argentina captain continues to make history at the 2026 World Cup, breaking records game after game, but amid all this brilliance stands out a weakness that continues to haunt him and begs a question no one could have imagined years ago. Should Messi stop taking penalties?

As he leads Argentina to their dream of retaining the World Cup title, the numbers show that penalty kicks have become the most worrying aspect of their game, leaving coach Lionel Scaloni with a real dilemma when the Tango side get their chance from the penalty spot.

Messi continues to set records

Despite the penalty controversy, there’s no denying that Messi is having one of the best tournaments in his history.

Against Egypt, the Argentine star was a key factor in the historic comeback as he scored once and set up a goal to lead his country to a 3-2 victory after falling two goals down.

The Argentina captain continued to break records as he became the oldest player to score and assist in the same World Cup game for the fifth time in his career, a feat no player has achieved more than 3 times since 1966.

He also became the first player to score in 6 consecutive World Cup qualifying matches and became the top scorer in the tournament’s history with 9 assists, overtaking legend Diego Maradona and setting a new record as the top scorer in a single World Cup match by a player over the age of 30.

The penalty kick brought back the controversy

But amid this brilliance, there was renewed talk of Messi’s weakness from the penalty spot.

Minutes after Egypt took the lead with their first goal, Argentina were awarded a penalty for tripping Nicolas Taliafico inside the area, an ideal opportunity to bring the match back to square one.

However, Messi struck the ball at a suitable height for goalkeeper Mustafa Schubert, who managed to stop it after predicting the right angle.

Although Argentina later managed to come back to win, the miss almost cost them the tournament, especially after Egypt led by two goals until the 79th minute before Tango turned the score around in one of the World Cup’s most thrilling games.

According to statisticsOptaArgentina’s chances of winning in the regular time did not exceed 0.6% before Cristian Romero’s first goal.

An unprecedented negative number

It was the second penalty missed by Messi at the 2026 World Cup, after he also missed against Austria in the group stage.

And so He became the first player in World Cup history to miss more than one penalty kick in the same match.excluding penalties.

He also took his tally to 4 missed penalties in the tournament’s history, the most of any player at the World Cup, compared to only managing to score half of the shots he took.

A surprising contradiction in the legend’s figures

What’s more interesting is that Messi’s problem is almost limited to penalties.

The Argentina star has scored 17 goals from open play at the World Cup in his career, although the Expected Goals (xG) for those opportunities was just 13.1, meaning he overshot expectations by around 4 goals, reflecting his exceptional ability to finish off attacks.

But the picture is completely different from the penalty.

He scored only 4 goals from penalty kicks, while the expected rate of goals from those shots was 6.31, that is, 2.31 goals less than expected.

During his career in the team of “Barcelona”, “Paris Saint-Germain”, “Inter Miami” and Argentina, Messi took 148 penalty kicks, of which only 114 were successful, with a success rate of 77%.

While that number looks good at first glance, it’s lower than the average success rate for penalty takers worldwide, which is around 79%, according to .Opta“Based on nearly a million hits in 40 different tournaments.

Ready alternatives within Argentina

The numbers show OptaIn addition, Scaloni has more than one option if he decides to change the penalty taker.

Leandro Paredes leads the list with a success rate of 92.9 percent, followed by Alexis McAllister and Enzo Fernandez with 91.7 percent each, and Julian Alvarez with 89.5 percent.

All of them are clearly superior to Messi in success rate, while only Lautaro Martinez and Thiago Almada are behind him.

Why is Messi still the number one enforcer?

Despite these numbers, giving the task to any other player is not an easy decision.

Messi has taken 32 penalties for Argentina, while the rest of the squad have combined for just seven.

The psychological pressure of taking a penalty at the World Cup is completely different to any other tournament, giving the Argentina captain an advantage in terms of experience, even if his numbers don’t reflect it.

Scaloni faces a dilemma

So far, Messi has made up for two missed penalties with goals and assists that have saved Argentina, but as the tournament draws to a close and the competition gets stronger, the tango may not get a second chance.

Controversy is therefore mounting within Argentina as to whether Scalloni will continue to give the greatest player in football history the penalty-taking responsibility, or whether he will make one of the boldest decisions of his coaching career by relinquishing the national team captain’s job in order to keep the dream of retaining the World Cup title alive.

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