Lionel Messi Has Been Hit Really Hard By His Penalty Miss

It's not how many times you get knocked down that count, it's how many times you get back up. Right now Lionel Messi is finding it very hard to get back up from his penalty miss against Iceland.

For a man as good at football as Lionel Messi it's incredible that penalties seem to be his blind spot. The easiest chance for a player to score is the one place he seems to struggle, having missed 24 of his professional penalties out of 103.

Within that record the five time Ballon d'Or winner has also missed four of his last seven spot kicks with the latest one coming in Argentina's World Cup opener against Iceland.

The miss meant that the two time winners got off to a disappointing start to their campaign with a 1-1 draw with the quarter finalists from the Euros two summers ago and puts a lot of pressure on their second game against Croatia on Thursday night.

According to the Independent despite being used to missing penalties Messi took the failure to score against Iceland particularly badly.

The newspaper says that he has been 'withdrawn' and 'sombre' and at a barbecue organised for the players and their families after the draw the 30 year old decided to miss it and stay in his room.

Messi lines up his penalty. Image: PA Images

After the match last Saturday the Barcelona star blamed himself for the draw saying, "I am responsible for what happened," and it's clearly a look into his psychy following the game.

With words like those it's no wonder that he barely showed his face on Sunday but ultimately it would be harsh to lay all the criticism at his door, he may have missed their best chance but Argentina weren't very good all round.

Messi at Argentina's training camp. Image: PA Images

Messi's hat-trick in the final qualifying game against Ecuador was the reason that they qualified autmoatically and at one point even a play-off place had looked in jeopardy.

There's every chance that he could bounce back and pull out the kind of performance that shuts everyone up and takes him out of his funk.

Everyone wants to see the best at their best, let's hope Messi can get back up.

Topics: Football News, Lionel Messi, World Cup news, Argentina, World Cup, Iceland

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

@Sidler28