With so many great penalty takers in the football game, competition becomes tougher when it comes to missed penalties. There is a long list of players who are regarded as the best penalty takers with most penalty scores but the real best is those who never missed a penalty. Can you think of any Footballer who never missed a penalty and has a 100% penalty conversion rate?
In this article, we are going to shed light on such great players who are the real penalty stars with 100% scoring ability. Although most people assume that Matt Le Tissier is the best penalty taker with most penalty attempts over the year and 98% conversion rate, he missed one penalty. However, Premier League record scorer Yaya Toure has beat Tissier to become the top penalty taker with 100% conversion rate. He never missed any spot kick and turned each into a goal.
1. Yaya Toure
Although the Manchester City player is not known for his spot kicks as he only took 11 in Premier League, he remains the most successful penalty taker without any missed penalty. He converted all the 11 spot kicks into goals for Manchester City in the Premier League, writing his name in history. From a statistical point of view, he could increase his tally as players like Sergio Aguero showed up in the field.
Though Matt Le Tissier proved that number takes you forward in any field, no matter how good you are, the name is written on the wall for miss eventually. Yaya Toure kept his name from getting written on the wall for missing a penalty. Toure scored some here and there for Manchester City with his first taken against West Bromwich Albion and last against West Ham for City in the Premier League.
Toure finished his career setting a 100% penalty conversion record. He played 11 league games including one for his country and the rest of three in the domestic cup competition in England.
2. Ivan Krstanovic
The professional striker has scored at least 30 goals from spot kicks without missing any penalty in his career. According to UEFA, Ivan Krstanovic has never missed an opportunity to convert a spot kick. The Croatian striker acknowledged it himself that ‘its at least 30 goals’ from the spot kick.
He must have had a unique technique through which he succeeded in converting every single penalty. He said to UEFA, “If I told everyone my technique it wouldn’t be a secret any more, would it?”. It is very obvious that whatever technique or strategy he used worked because winning 30 goals from spot kicks is not something for ordinary people.
The 6ft 5 tall Croatian striker has scored a number of goals and a lot of them in a year but it’s really heartwarming to see his penalty score perfection which brought him here to the list.
Winning a total of 38 penalties, Qvidiu Herea has set a brilliant 100% record without missing a single penalty. The Romanian attacking midfielder has enjoyed a prolific career being one of the continent’s best midfielders over the last 20 years. Throughout his entire career, Herea has netted 100 goals for a variety of clubs from midfield.
Herea made it very clear that since before his professional career started, he used to focus and spend spare time on taking penalties instead of anything else. He stated that he always knew of a way to stand out among the rest and increase his tally of goals.
The Romanian midfielder converted all the 19 penalties he took for FC National Bucuresti and FC Rapid București. His record was about to come to an end in 2012 when Razvan Plesca saved his penalty against CS Gaz Metan Media’s. However, Herea got lucky as the referee ordered a retake and changed the game. That abrupt retake decision kept the Romanian midfielder from missing a penalty and losing his 100% record.
4. Vladislav Stoyanov
It happens several times that players like Ovidiu Herea get lucky with the goal tally. Herea is not the only one who got lucky but there are plenty of other cases. Sometimes, official data lacks some major information which sometimes results in generosity towards players. Some players get away with a penalty miss or gain every now and then.
The same case happened with Vladislav Stoyanov who is said or known to have a 100% record with 24 goals from 24 penalties in the top flight of 1980s and 1990s. Despite Stoyanov claiming that he did miss a penalty for Chernomorets in the second division, the data failed to update. So the official data still shows that he scored 24 from 24 while according to him, he netted 24 out of 25. Whatever the truth is, one thing is clear that Stoyanov has mastery in delayed kicks which helped him set this record.
5. Ledio Pano
The professional midfielder Ledio Pano is one of those few players to ever take more than 40 penalties and score from each of them. Players like Herea and Stoyanov can be debated on their luck with a lack of official data while other achievers like Matt Le Tissier and Rickie Lambert blame their last career years where they missed penalties.
Anyway, according to UEFA, Ledio Pano has a record of 100% conversion rate in more than 50 penalties he took in his career in Greece and Albania. Pano once told UEFA that he never looked a keeper in the eye. He always just knew where I was going to put the ball. If we honestly look at the statistics, Pano is the best player to ever score 50 from 50 penalties. There’s no two opinions, Ledio Pano holds the official record for 50 from 50.
