Messi penalty misses spark debate over Argentina’s World Cup taker

Lionel Scaloni kept Lionel Messi on penalty duty after the captain missed twice at the 2026 World Cup, leaving Argentina to balance immediate finishing with the authority that comes with handing the ball to its most important player. With a quarter-final against Switzerland ahead, the issue has become less about Messi’s status than about whether a change would actually raise Argentina’s chances from 12 yards.

Messi’s latest miss came against Egypt on Tuesday, July 7, when Mostafa Shobeir saved the spot-kick in the first half of Argentina’s round-of-16 win. That miss followed another against Austria on June 22 in Argentina’s 2-0 victory at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, a game in which FIFA said Messi recovered to become the World Cup’s all-time leading scorer. The contrast has sharpened the debate: Messi remains decisive in open play, yet two missed penalties in the same tournament have exposed a weak point at the exact moment Argentina can least afford one.

The numbers carry their own weight. Messi became the first player in World Cup history to miss two penalties in normal time in a single edition, and he has also been reported as the first player ever to miss four World Cup penalties overall. That kind of record does not merely raise a technical question about spot-kicks. It also puts pressure on Argentina’s public hierarchy, because Messi is still the captain, the tournament’s leading scorer for Argentina and the player around whom much of the team’s psychological weight still gathers.

Scaloni has drawn a firm line against a forced change. He said Messi will keep penalty duties unless Messi himself decides otherwise, a stance that protects the captain’s standing even as the misses pile up. For Argentina, removing Messi from such a visible responsibility mid-tournament would not just be a tactical adjustment; it would signal that the staff was willing to cut against its own icon in a knockout run built on trust, resilience and a refusal to panic.