​Whether France ultimately lift a third World Cup title or not, Kylian Mbappe’s missed penalty in the quarter-final win over Morocco may be the memory that sticks least for some fans. The goalless confrontation in Foxborough shifted when Mbappe was fouled by Noussair Mazraoui. The France captain stuttered in his run-up, glanced at goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, and watched his tame effort easily saved. Mbappe recovered his poise on the hour mark with a spectacular curling strike that breached a stubborn Morocco backline, and six minutes later Ousmane Dembele added a second to seal a 2-0 victory. Yet that early blunder, uncharacteristic for the competition’s joint-leading scorer, raises a broader question: should players abandon the stuttering penalty approach?
In the pantheon of football purists’ complaints about the modern game, stutter runs sit high alongside gloves worn with short-sleeve shirts, simulation, and the ever-present video assistant referee. There is no universal definition of a stutter, but FIFA rules permit a player to stop or feint during the run-up as long as they do not do so immediately before striking the ball. The technique is not a novelty—John Aldridge, Mexico legend Hugo Sánchez, and Pelé all employed stutters to disrupt goalkeepers—but it can backfire spectacularly if the keeper doesn’t commit early.
Mbappe now sits alongside Bruno Guimarães, Jørgen Strand Larsen, Lionel Messi, and Harry Kane in a group of high-profile players who have missed penalties after a stuttering approach (though Kane was granted a retake against Croatia, which he converted without a stutter). Of the 26 stuttered penalties in this World Cup, including shootouts, 11 failed to find the net, yielding a conversion rate of 57 percent. ITV pundit Ian Wright remarked, “This stuttering penalty seems to be the one. The goalkeepers seem to have got a march on it now.”
Other stars—Marko Arnautović, Raúl Jiménez, Neymar, Mbappé, Cristiano Ronaldo, Yoane Wissa, and Kai Havertz—have found success with the technique. By contrast, 24 of the 35 non-stuttered penalties in the tournament have found the back of the net, a 68 percent conversion rate. In general, this World Cup has been notably challenging for players when converting from the spot. Across all penalties not decided by shootouts, 30 percent have been missed, the second-highest miss rate for a World Cup since records began in 1966. If shootouts are added, the miss rate climbs to 35 percent—the highest total since 1966.
Football looks as if it is in something of an arms race regarding penalties. The current era has seen goalkeepers bigger and more athletic, which, according to former Scotland winger Pat Nevin on BBC Radio 5 Live, makes scoring from 12 yards increasingly difficult. “If your keeper goes the right way, you must hit the side netting with pace; even then, it still might be saved.” A top-tier penalty is no longer a guaranteed goal, so players and coaches alike are re-evaluating their approach. The question now is whether Mbappé’s misstep will influence a shift away from stutters in high-stakes moments or if the technique will persist as one of the sport’s enduring tricks of the trade.