A graphic naming the players who have missed the most penalties will always light up the comments. It feels definitive. It also tells only half the tale.

Cristiano Ronaldo appears at the top of that list with 34 career misses, yet he has also taken the most penalties and converted 177 of 211, an 83.9% rate in official matches. That is better than the historical average for spot kicks. Lionel Messi sits on 32 misses from 145, a 77.9% rate. Neymar is at 91 from 113, 80.5%. Francesco Totti finished 86 from 106, 81.1%. Ciro Immobile is 86 from 105, 81.9%. These figures treat shootouts as part of the ledger, which explains why the raw miss counts look high.

The baseline matters. Most reputable xG models place a penalty’s expected conversion around 0.76 to 0.79, which means a “typical” taker scores roughly three out of every four penalties. In that light, Ronaldo’s 83.9% is well above par, Neymar, Totti, and Immobile are solidly above par, and Messi lands near the model mean.

The viral framing also ignores how competitions are logged. Some databases include kicks from the mark, others do not. Transfermarkt’s penalty pages list a player’s total makes and misses and, in practice, align with tallies that include shootouts. By contrast, standard stat glossaries and competition records treat shootouts as separate events, which is one reason totals can vary across outlets. Shootouts also convert a little lower than in-game penalties, a product of pressure rather than better goalkeeping.

Why the leaderboard looks unfair

Two more context pieces help. First, rules. Since 2019, keepers must keep at least part of one foot on, in line with, or behind the goal line when the kick is struck. It sounds minor, yet even small timing changes influence outcomes at the margins.

Second, the Champions League lens that fans love to argue. In Europe’s top competition, Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski share the record for penalties scored with 19 each, while Messi has 18. That ranking mirrors what the eye test suggests: volume follows teams that live in the box and reach the latter rounds, and the very best still finish at elite rates.

None of this means the jokes will stop. They never do. It does mean the numbers are more interesting than a “misses” table suggests. The stronger way to compare legends is to weigh both volume and rate within the same dataset, then add game state, competition, and era. If you want a benchmark for nerves of steel, there is Matt Le Tissier, who converted 47 of 48 across his career, a near-perfect outlier that proves how thin the margins can be.

If you are set on a debate starter, try this: the “misses” list is really a story about responsibility. The ones at the top are the ones who kept stepping up.