If I Was King, I Would Have Anyone Who Takes a Stuttering Penalty Shot

The Stuttering Penalty - Slick, Stupid, Sensational, or Utter Shite?

There is no doubt that when the stuttering penalty works, the taker looks like the coolest bloke in the building. The casual speed of the run-up; the last-minute decision depending on the keeper's movement, and the fact that it doesn’t even need to be in the corner if he gets it right – it's immensely satisfying, especially if scored by your team.

However, when someone gets it wrong, like Kylian Mbappé did last night, you can end up looking like a complete pillock – far too casual with your technique, far too overconfident against a keeper who has a 50/50 chance, and far too close to the middle for pundits to claim that it was even a good save by the man between the sticks.

Bounou DENIES Mbappe ❌

France fail to capitalise on taking the lead from the spot 👀 pic.twitter.com/1mzWj2vkJZ

— ITV Football (@itvfootball) July 9, 2026

In Mbappé's case, it didn’t matter, as he and his French compatriots waltzed to a simple 2-0 World Cup quarter-final win over Morocco anyway, with the Real Madrid forward scoring superbly in the process, but it begs the question – why would you risk looking like a total plonker on the biggest stage of all when you can simply pick your spot, keep your head down and boot it?

Honestly, I’m fed up with it – so many players have tried and failed, gambled and lost their aura in a bid to look nonchalant, and the method simply isn’t reliable enough. If it were my choice, anyone who misses a stutter penalty deserves a season-long ban. It simply isn’t worth the risk.

Sorry, I’ve Got a St-St-St-St-Stutter

The stutter penalty isn’t exactly a new addition to the game – Robert Lewandowski is known to be an avid user, Neymar has been using the technique extremely successfully for his entire career, and in between, countless players have attempted to adopt it, albeit with mixed success.

The idea is simple – in your run-up to take a penalty kick, you stop briefly or hop up in a bid to spot any tell at which way the keeper is going. Many keepers fall for the trick, team, and again, shifting their weight one way before the ball has been kicked, meaning that to change direction is a muscular challenge.

If this is spotted, all the taker needs to do is slot the ball to the other side of the goal, and the keeper won't be able to recover in time, instead squatting awkwardly in the middle of the goal, looking a bit red in the face.

The best stutter-step spot-kick taker of recent times is former Chelsea and Arsenal midfielder Jorginho – of the 59 penalties the Italian has taken in his career, 51 have found the net; his hop, skip and a jump right before striking the ball is the downfall of countless goalkeepers.

Chelsea 1-0 Brighton. Jorginho penalty. As seen from the West Upper. #cfc #chelsea pic.twitter.com/IeztAqKhdD

— London Is Blue Podcast ⭐️⭐️ (@LondonBluePod) September 28, 2019

He, however, along with Mexico and Wolves’ Raul Jimenez, is a rare success story. The majority of users are renowned more for their misses than their hits, with Lewandowski and even Lionel Messi suffering from high-profile misses – the best of all time has missed twice already from the spot in this tournament.

Now, French icon and joint all-time leading World Cup goalscorer Kylian Mbappé is the most recent to feel the keen sting of the screwed-up stutter.

Why Did Mbappe Stutter?

In truth, it was a bizarre decision by Mbappé to opt for the stutter for his first-half spot kick against Morocco.

Having earned the penalty, he was ready to take and convert it just a minute later but quickly became bemused as the referee prevented him from taking it for reasons we still don’t entirely understand. We saw him ushering players to the correct side of the 18-yard box line, but we have a feeling VAR was in his ear as well.

In all, Mbappe was forced to wait a total of 3 minutes 10 seconds between winning the penalty and stepping up to strike it. If you are standing there, watching the goalkeeper, waiting impatiently, and are in general just getting more and more frustrated, why on earth would you effectively make yourself wait even longer by stuttering?

It felt like a pre-meditated decision, one which he had committed to as soon as he went down under Noussair Mazraoui’s challenge. After all, he’d stuttered in the run-up to scoring from the spot against Paraguay, a game which has already become infamous for a host of other reasons. Why not stick to what worked against them?

Perhaps Mbappe also felt the need to deceive Yassine Bounou in the Moroccan goal, as across the last two World Cups alone, the Al Nassr shot-stopper had saved three spot kicks, including those in shootouts, the most of any keeper in the tournament's history. It soon became four.

2 - Including shoot-outs, 🇲🇦 Yassine Bounou has only been beaten by two out of nine penalties he's faced at the World Cup (saved four, three missed the target).

Intimidating. pic.twitter.com/PgpOUcbIYe

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) July 9, 2026

Faced with a man whose entire reputation hung on his ability to save penalties, it’s no wonder Mbappe felt the need to try something different. Remember his three penalties in the 2022 World Cup final? Two or three steps, consistent run-up, no stopping, BANG.

That’s his typical technique – the stutter is a recent addition brought in since moving to Real Madrid, and while his penalty record has been healthy during his stint in Spain so far, no one can keep that going forever, particularly with a stutter.

People may be surprised to hear this, but Mbappe isn’t actually the best penalty taker. Excluding penalty shootouts, he has missed 15 penalties throughout his career, averaging almost two per season for club and country. The best penalty takers sit at or below one, so even without the stutter, Mbappe has some catching up to do.

Bright Lights, Big Occasions

Some will point to the fact that Mbappé missed the penalty in the quarter-final of a World Cup game against one of France’s biggest international rivals and argue that perhaps the occasion got to him.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time – Mbappé was the only player to miss a penalty in France’s shootout with Switzerland back at Euro 2021, a moment which completely undercut his superstar status and showed him to be human.

But once again, we must bring up his hat trick of penalties in the 2022 World Cup final against Argentina. Taking spot kicks on the biggest stage of them all, the Frenchman bagged all three – that takes balls, more than enough of them to score in a game two stages prior four years later.

95 days until #FIFAWorldCup 2026.

Kylian Mbappé completely changed the 2022 Final in 95 seconds ⏰🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/D9KFp7DWpX

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) March 8, 2026

The wait to take the kick certainly wouldn’t have helped him – even the very best are capable of second-guessing themselves, and Mbappe was given more than enough time to do so.

But I still maintain that the stutter – that damn stutter – was what got him. The harder a penalty is struck, the harder it is to save, simple as that. With a stutter, the taker loses all of their momentum, and they are forced into a gentle sidefoot. Automatically, the goalkeeper stands a better chance of saving it – it becomes a simple matter of diving the right way.

The missed penalty doesn’t subtract from the fact that Kylian Mbappe is one of the very best footballers in the world right now, as well as arguably the greatest World Cup performer of all time. But please, Kylian, bin off the stutter. You never know when it will next cost you…