Lionel Messi just became the first player in World Cup history to miss two penalties at a single tournament — and Argentina still advanced past Egypt in one of the more chaotic knockout games of this World Cup 2026.
https://twitter.com/OptaJoe/status/2074530122162389134
Two penalty misses. One tournament. First time in the history of the competition it’s happened to a single player. That’s not a slump. That’s a specific kind of historic embarrassment, and at 39 years old, it lands differently than it would at 29.
Roy Keane went on TNT Sports and said Messi looked like he was “lacking belief in himself.” I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t sting, because it does. Egypt had Argentina 2-0 down with 11 minutes left, Mostafa Zico’s goal capping off what genuinely looked like a catastrophic upset, and the whole stadium had that terrible, quiet feeling where you’re watching someone’s legacy wobble in real time. The first Messi penalty miss came in the group stage against Austria. Then he stepped up again against Egypt in the Round of 16, down 1-0, and Mostafa Shobeir saved it. Two times at a single World Cup. That’s the kind of stat that follows a player forever.
Except Argentina won.
Cristian Romero pulled one back in the 79th minute. Then Messi — the same Messi who’d just watched his penalty saved — equalized in the 83rd and Argentina advanced. The man who looked broken found the goal that kept them alive. I’m sitting on my couch watching this thinking: what is happening.
The discourse clogging every timeline right now about Messi’s penalty misses at this World Cup is a little selective about what it counts. We’re obsessing over the two misses because they’re countable, verifiable, historically unique. But Messi has 21 all-time World Cup goals — more than any player in the history of the tournament, men’s or women’s — and he broke Miroslav Klose’s record of 16 earlier in this very competition. He converted 116 of 150 career penalties getting here. The misses are real. The full picture is also real.
The honest counterargument is this: maybe two penalty misses at 39, in a single tournament, is exactly the signal you’ve been looking for. Maybe the pressure at a World Cup hits different than club football, and maybe the composure that used to be automatic isn’t anymore. A reasonable person can hold that position.
And a reasonable person can also look at what Messi has already done at this tournament and note that Argentina is still in the quarterfinals, Messi is still the leading scorer in World Cup history, and the penalty miss that happened on July 7 in Atlanta was followed, in the same game, by the goal that saved their run.
The GOAT cracking under pressure? Or the GOAT absorbing chaos and delivering anyway? Both arguments are live. Both get lazier when they pretend the other one doesn’t exist.
Argentina’s still in it. Messi still has games left to answer the question.
