Past the empty gate
Icardi makes an embarrassing penalty miss
September 27, 2023, 3:27 p.m
Mauro Icardi is the two-time top scorer in Serie A, and there is no doubt about the Argentine professional footballer’s qualities. This makes it all the more surprising that Icardi missed a shot in the Turkish league.
Argentine striker Mauro Icardi caused ridicule and amusement with a failed penalty trick. The 30-year-old and his teammate Kerem Aktürkoglu from Galatasaray Istanbul had thought of something special on the sixth matchday of the Turkish Süper Lig against Istanbulspor, but failed miserably.
In the 37th minute, Aktürkoglu took a penalty on Tuesday evening, but did not shoot on goal, but instead put the ball across. The onrushing Icardi should have simply pushed in on the left, as keeper David Jensen was already on the ground in the other corner. But Icardi, Italy’s Footballer of the Year in 2018 and two-time top scorer in Serie A, shot over and then pulled his hair out in disbelief. The eight-time Argentina international Icardi and Aktürkoglu received a lot of ridicule on social networks for their failed trick.
However, this penalty variant has already worked in football history. Dutchman Johan Cruyff and Dane Jesper Olsen enjoyed similar success for Ajax Amsterdam in 1982. In 2016, the then Barcelona stars Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez scored a confident goal with the trick. Icardi himself had also scored in this way in a friendly match with Paris Saint-Germain, played by superstar Neymar, in 2020. This time, however, Icardi and Aktürkoglu completely failed in the execution. The faux pas apparently hardly bothered the Argentine: just five minutes later he scored the winning goal, prepared by Aktürkoglu. It was Icardi’s seventh league goal in the sixth game.