The record for the most penalties missed in football belongs to Cristiano Ronaldo, who has failed to convert 36 spot-kicks. Lionel Messi is next on 35. For years this list was headed by Messi; Ronaldo went past him and has stayed there.
The obvious caveat is the one that matters most: Ronaldo has also scored more penalties than anyone on record — 184 — and taken more, 220 against Messi’s 149. Miss enough and you were trusted enough to keep taking them. Ronaldo converts at about 84 per cent, Messi at about 77.
Most penalties missed in football
|
Player |
Penalties missed |
Penalties taken |
Figures to |
|
Cristiano Ronaldo |
36 |
220 |
August 2026 |
|
Lionel Messi |
35 |
149 |
August 2026 |
|
Neymar |
22 |
113 |
October 2025 |
|
Francesco Totti |
20 |
106 |
career, retired 2017 |
|
Ciro Immobile |
19 |
105 |
October 2025 |
|
Zlatan Ibrahimovic |
17 |
104 |
career, retired 2023 |
|
Ronaldinho |
16 |
— |
career, retired 2018 |
Penalty records are counted differently by different databases, chiefly over shoot-outs, so treat these as close rather than exact. The Ronaldo and Messi figures are current to August 2026; the others come from an October 2025 count, and for the three retired players they are final. Neymar’s and Immobile’s can only have gone up since.
Cristiano Ronaldo: the most taken, the most scored, the most missed
Ronaldo has been his team’s designated penalty taker at Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, Portugal and Al Nassr, across more than two decades, and volume is the whole story. Nobody has stepped up more often. His conversion rate of roughly 84 per cent is comfortably above average for an elite taker — the misses are the cost of taking 220 of them.
Lionel Messi: fewer taken, a lower conversion rate
Messi’s 149 penalties are 71 fewer than Ronaldo’s, partly because he has often handed them to teammates, and his conversion sits closer to 77 per cent. His misses also have a habit of arriving in the games people remember — the 2016 Copa America final shoot-out against Chile among them.
The rest of the list
Neymar is third with 22, from 113 attempts. Francesco Totti, Roma’s captain and primary taker for the best part of two decades, finished on 20 misses from 106. Ciro Immobile, who took nearly everything for Lazio, is on 19.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic ended his career on 17 misses from 104 penalties. He retired at the end of the 2022-23 season, at AC Milan, at 41. Ronaldinho completes the group on 16.
What every name here has in common is longevity and trust: these are the players their clubs kept handing the ball to for fifteen years or more. The list of most penalties missed is, in practice, a list of who took the most.
For more on the two men at the top, see our lists of the most World Cup appearances and every World Cup Golden Boot winner.
Author: William Paul
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Featured photo: AFP /