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Penalties are football’s greatest blessing, and it’s greatest curse. While the winning of a spot-kick is celebrated with considerable gusto, the conversion of one is far from straight-forward. You would expect players who practice these things day-in and day-out to bury every penalty they take but stress, the pressure of the situation, nerves, and Diego Alves can alter all that.
It still is, though a grave crime to commit – missing from the spot - so here’s a list of the dozen worst offenders from the spot in La Liga history...
12. Lionel Messi – Barcelona (8)
Although not known to be a great penalty taker (which is so strange considering his expertise on free-kicks) the Argentine has missed just 8 out of 44 spotkicks at a miss rate of 18%. The Barcelona man, though, does share his penalty duties at times with Neymar Jr. which may be a reason why he’s taken so few of them.
11. Carlos Muñoz - Real Oviedo (8)
This is not good Senor Muñoz. Handing the ball to the man who had his best moments at Real Oviedo gave you the same probability of scoring as tossing a coin. Of the 19 he took, he missed 8 at a miss rate of 50% – I’m not even sure why the other players, and the coach, let him take a spot-kick in the first place!
10. Lyuboslav Penev – Atletico Madrid (9)
The Bulgarian predator was usually clinical in front of goal, but he did miss 9 out of 43 spot kick attempts at a miss rate of 21%. These Atletico strikers were never very good from the spot, were they? As you go on in the article, you’ll understand why I say this about Los Rojiblancos.
9. López Ufarte Atletico Madrid/ Real Sociedad(9)
Hell, you don’t even have to wait for the next slide!
Ufarte also shared his goal scoring peak with hometown club Real Socieda, and he was not very good from the spot for either. Another one of those mysterious cases who were usually reliable in front of goal but not so great from the spot, he missed 9 out of 26 spot kicks he took at a miss rate of 35%
8. Fernando Torres – Atletico Madrid (9)
Not all that better with a miss rate of 32% is Ufarte’s modern counterpart, Fernando ‘El Nino’ Torres. The Spaniard is blindingly brilliant in front of goal – just check out his collection of one-on-one finishes, but something in that enigmatic mind goes haywire when he takes a penalty. He’s missed 9 out the 28 he’s taken and with most of the other spot-kick takers in the current Atleti squad proving just as unreliable, he may yet get to move up the list!
7. Samuel Eto’o – Barcelona (9)
Slighlty worse than El Nino is another unexpected entrant on the list, Cameroon and Barca legend Samuel Eto’o was a natural goalscorer and was capable of moments of pure magic in front of goal – except that is, when they asked him to take a penalty. He’s missed 33% of the 27 penalties he’s taken for Barcelona and one understands why it was usually Ronaldinho who stepped forward for these things.
6. Cristiano Ronaldo – Real Madrid (10)
Before you jump on your keyboard to spill vitriol, let me pount out that his 10 misses came from 68 attempts @ a rate just 15% (which you may note is lower than a certain Argentine). You might as well give credit where it’s due - Diego Alves is the reasong for Ronaldo’s presence on this list. The penalty-saver extraordinaire has saved 3 of 4 Ronaldo’s penalties whilst undertaking the unenviable task of guarding Valencia’s goal.
Read, Also – Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo - season by season comparison of their goal scoring records
5. Dani Ruiz – Athletic Bilbao (10)
The dinimutive Athletic striker missed 10 of the the 34 penalties he took – at a rather unflattering rate of 29%. This is quite remarkable considering his goal scoring exploits for the great Basque club... he scored 147 goals in just 302 games during their 80’s heyday. In fact he only failed to hit double digits once in his first ten years at the club!
4. Juan Señor – Real Zaragoza (10)
Juan Antonio Señor was the kind of reliable central midfielder every good team requires. The Real Zaragoza side of the 80’s was a very good one indeed, and Senor was theit bedrick for nigh on a decade playing 304 times for them and chipping in with 54 goals. 24 of those were from the spot, where he was often not as reliable as he was on other areas of the pitch – those 24 success penalties came out of 34 attempts giving him a miss-rate identical to Dani at 29%
3. Raul Tamudo – Espanyol (12)
At times during the late nineties and the first decade of the 2000s it looked like Raul Tamudo was carrying Espanyol all by his lonesome. The Catalan legend scored 129 times in 340 games for the lesser known Barcelona side, and considering he did this while playing for a side that wasn’t renowned for their scoring exploits, this was some feat. He was though, not that reliable from the spot, missing 12 times out of 42 attempts at a miss rate of 29%
2. Quini – Sporting Gijon, Barcelona (13)
Enrique Castro Gonzalez, Quini, was one of Spain’s greatest ever strikers. The forward scored 302 goals in 567 games, the majority of which came for Sporting Gijon and Barcelona. He was so enigmatic, in fact, that he was once kidnapped in 1981 – a stunning moment that cost Barcelona the league that year. Read all about that quite inredible tale right here! To the point, though, he wasn’t as great from the spot as he was otherwise in the box – he missed 30% of the penalties he took, missing 13 out of the 43 he attempted for his sides.
1. Hugo Sanchez – Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid (15)
Widely regarded as Mexico’s greatest ever player, Hugo Sanchez is an absolute legend of the game who through an incredible career played over a hundred times for Atletico Madrid and over ttwo hundred times for Real Madrid. As deadly a finisher as there ever has been, the ultimate fox-in-the-box did, though, miss 15 of the penalties he attempted – which is not that much considering just how many he took... 71! At a miss rate of just 21% he is only behind the all-time greats that are Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi when it comes to reliabilty from the spot!
