Cristiano Ronaldo's Missed Penalty Becomes Trending, It's The 29th Failure In CR7's Career

Cristiano Ronaldo, his penalty failure triggered Manchester United's defeat of Mindddlesbrough in the FA Cup. (Photo: raisport.rai.it)

JAKARTA - Cristiano Ronaldo's penalty failure in the FA Cup fourth round match between host Manchester United and Middlesbrough at Old Trafford Stadium on Friday night, February 4, 2022 or early Saturday morning WIB, became the gossip of football addicts around the world. A total of 191 thousand twitter tweets made the name of the top Portuguese striker a trend in Indonesia.

Ronaldo missed a penalty against Middlesbrough which was guarded by Joe Lumley in the 19th minute. The penalty miss affected United, who were eventually eliminated from the FA Cup. The team nicknamed the Red Devils was eliminated because they lost on penalties with a total score of 7-8. A penalty shoot-out became the deciding, after the score until the game ended was 1-1.

Manager Ralf Ragnick comforts Manchester United players after losing to Middlesbrough and being knocked out of the 2022 FA Cup. (Photo: twitter@ManUtd)

United took the lead through England's young attacking midfielder, Jadon Sancho in the 25th minute. The Boro replied in the 64th minute through defensive midfielder Matt Crooks' goal.

"I'm very disappointed because we should have won and were able to lock up the game in the first half. We should have won 3-0 in the first half," said United manager from Germany, Ralf Ragnick as quoted by ESPN.

United's opportunities are indeed many, understandably because they are against teams from lower castes in the Premier League. However, the Red Devils retainer was unable to complete the many opportunities they had, including the failure of Ronaldo's penalty, which was transferred from Juventus for 15 million euros, or around Rp. 247 billion.

Ronaldo-Messi comparison

The 12-pass shot that missed Ronaldo on Friday night marked CR7's first penalty miss of 2022. Ronaldo's fans were surprised, because the star player is known to be good at kicking penalties. Because he was considered a champion in executing penalties, Ronaldo was also given the nickname Penaldo.

Statistical data over the last 10 years shows that Ronaldo failed to execute a penalty 25 times out of a total of 126 occasions. When compared to the Argentine soccer star, Lionel Messi, the two are evenly matched.

Lionel Messi, the Argentine star who also failed to execute a penalty several times. (Photo: Marca.com)

According to the messivsronaldo.app website, throughout their careers Messi executed 131 penalties while Ronaldo 172. Of these total kicks, Messi succeeded 102 times or Ronaldo 143. Ronaldo and Messi both failed to execute penalties 29 times.

According to former United captain Roy Keane, Ronaldo should not have missed his task of taking a penalty against The Boro. The big name that CR7 bears is a big bet he has to keep. The failure affected the confidence of all players in the match.

"The most surprising thing in the match against Boro was of course Ronaldo's failure to take the penalty. He has to be criticized, because he should be able to hit the target," Keane said, as quoted by the Manchester Evening News.

There was no comment from Cristiano Ronaldo about his penalty miss. Maybe it wasn't Penaldo's lucky day, eh Ronaldo.