Commentary: Penalty kicks shrink Lionel Messi to a mere mortal – yet he continues to take them

If we’re being honest, Messi has other weaknesses. He is old and short for a football player. He has slowed down from his best days.

However, he hides these weaknesses under his strengths. In penalty kicks, the situation is different.

It’s like challenging the Man of Steel to a bar fight, the condition of which would be drinking a kryptonite drink before the fist sauna.

Messi takes the offer every time. Like the Man of Steel, he arrives in his party gear: He looks like a superhero in every way, but both the goalkeeper and the spectators know that his superpowers are gone.

The world’s greatest player shrinks to a mere mortal. The sight is fascinating and frustrating at the same time.

It is also dangerous. Messi’s obsession with tough guys could cost Argentina the World Cup.

against Egypt this was already close. Argentina were down when they were awarded a penalty. Of course, Messi was the leader.

The attempt was exactly the kind that the superhero’s cloak is used to momentarily pass to the goalkeeper: a sufficiently high, sufficiently slow and sufficiently centrally oriented shot to the goalkeeper’s easier side.

Egypt goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir fended off the bet easily.

It was Messi’s fourth unsuccessful attempt at the World Cup. He has just as many successful spots.

In light of the statistics, giving the ball to Messi in spot situations is a coin toss. It’s a bad deal for Argentina. In the World Cup, the game situation boosters are embedded in the network with about 80 percent certainty

Argentina would have much more reliable drivers. For example, a midfielder Enzo Fernandez has sunk 12 out of 11 during his career. The only failure is from 2023.

Why Messi then draw Argentina’s penalties?

Is it selfishness? Does the team captain think about his own goal statistics and records so much that the team’s advantage is forgotten?

Is it an inflated sense of duty? Does Messi interpret the toughs as a responsibility that cannot be escaped? Would he carry the burden even if someone else pulled and failed?

Only Messi himself knows the answer. What makes it even more difficult is that Messi has sometimes been a very good point guard. His average success percentage throughout his career is 77.

In the ranks, he has become miserable in his old days. However, Messi has achieved a rare position: he has the right to miss penalty kicks without penalty.

Even in his old days, Messi lives on with his confidence. It could be that taking the commas would be too hard for a superhero.

Still, Argentina is walking a tightrope under the leadership of its captain. The team has flown frighteningly close to the sun against both Cape Verde and Egypt.

At some point, Argentina will face a situation where there is no room for major failures.

Then fairy-tale happiness and tragic disappointment are different sides of the same coin. No one knows which side will be up.

The only thing that is certain is that it is not the coach who makes the decision about the starting point guard Lionel Scaloni. That’s what Messi does.