Unironically. For an all-time great and one of the most prolific goalscorers ever, he's surprisingly not that good at taking penalties. Hell, he managed to screw Argentina out of the easier side of the knockout draw in the 2018 WC by missing a pen.
I don't know what to call it but in general play, he has this unique way of kicking the ball along the ground in a highly controlled yet relatively slow manner so that it has this curve in it. It works very well for him when he's passing or shooting during open play. He uses it a lot for penalties too, however, and I know I'm just some guy on the internet, but that method of striking the ball doesn't seem very efficient for pens to me.
It seems to result in pens that are low to the ground (well, basically on the floor) but fairly central and without the pace to beat the keeper before they can get down to it. When they get saved, they look like easy saves and kinda shitty penalties tbh. What's more, he puts in a good amount at what most people would call a comfortable saving height.
There's also the fact that he's missed the target completely more than ten times over the last decade or so. Some of those are really bad misses. I feel like most primary takers, or even just competent strikers, miss the target a few times, at most, in their careers. Of course, Messi does take a lot more to get a higher miss %, but based on how good he is at most things in football, you'd expect him to have a pen success rate of 90%+ while painting the corners of the goal -- yet he doesn't.
