Pele once had the nerve to suggest that "a penalty is a cowardly way to score". Yet, any striker or footballer would be foolish to refuse the opportunity of scoring from 12 yards – especially since, for those unfamiliar with the pressures of a spot-kick situation, such a glaring chance to score appears so elementary.

But as history has often told us, this turns out to be quite the opposite. No matter how much work is done on the training ground, even the greatest football players in the world have been subject to the worst penalty misses of all time, and often in storylines that emanate the highest pressures for the shiniest rewards.

From Baggio to Waddle, Ronaldo to Terry, and, curiously, Pat Nevin to Diana Ross – penalties have provided viewers with some of the best humour and second-hand embarrassments in football and television history. The job here was to whittle down so many glorious flashpoints into 10 of the greatest.

Here's what Football FanCast came up with…

10 Cristiano Ronaldo vs Chelsea, May 2008

Monday morning's newspaper front pages read "Relieved Ronaldo Spared Worst Day" – and for good reason, after his stuttered penalty against Chelsea in the 2008 Champions League final shootout barely evoked effort from opposition goalkeeper Petr Cech to keep the Blues in with a shot of their first European triumph.

That year's eventual Ballon d'Or winner, Cristiano Ronaldo should have ditched the over complex run-up and stutter and just smashed it into the back of the net. But 'Mr Champions League', as his adoring fans now know him, never did things simply, even when the objective of a 12-yard penalty was facilitated easily.

Luckily, as a later entry proves, this wasn't the worst penalty in the shootout, even if Ronaldo is to admit himself that his overconfidence got the better of him. Later in the night, Chelsea's fifth penalty proved far more humiliating and costly as rain lashed it down in Moscow.

9 Chris Waddle vs West Germany, July 1990

England have a depressingly bad record in penalty shootouts, and it was Chris Waddle's blaze over the crossbar to send the Three Lions packing their bags for the airport the next morning after their 1990 World Cup semi-final against West Germany that captured the nation's 12-yard heartbreak.

It was the closest England had come to a major final since 1966's coronation – but after Gary Lineker, Peter Beardsley, and David Platt scored in the shootout, Franz Beckenbauer's eventual tournament winners rose to the occasion to stop Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle, who ended a brilliant campaign with a soured finish.

8 Mehmet Aurélio, Circa 2010

This one is so atrocious that context won't make it better or worse. It's honestly as if Aurélio needs to be told where the goal is after a side-footed attempt that was closer to being a throw-in than a goal.

As with many of these failures from the spot, the benefit of the doubt is given because of a slip. However, it really is a shocker. So much so, that the only way it could have been worse was if the Turkish-Brazilian midfielder, who plied his trade for Besiktas, examined the turf after to alleviate his discernible embarrassment.

Undoubtedly, his teammates still bring this one up at get-togethers.

7 John Terry vs Manchester United, May 2008

Whereas Cristiano Ronaldo's miss didn't change the course of his first Champions League triumph too much, John Terry's sure did. Certainly, nobody else in Moscow on that fateful night seemed bothered by the rain. But for the Chelsea captain, when it rained, it poured.

With a chance to lift Old Big Ears on the line had he scored, his backside finished closer to goal after he slipped and missed the all-important penalty. It bore him the sobriquet 'Slippy T' – which is no longer used by many after another infamous, more contemporary, slip by an Englishman eclipses 2008's comedic value, with Chelsea this time benefiting at Steven Gerrard's expense on that occasion.

Tevez scored

Ballack scored

Carrick scored

Belletti scored

Ronaldo missed

Lampard scored

Hargreaves scored

Ashley Cole scored

Nani scored

Terry missed

Anderson scored

Kalou scored

Giggs scored

Anelka missed

6 Diana Ross, June 1994

When presented with the debate over who is the best penalty-taking option for a 90th-minute World Cup-winning spot-kick, the chances are that nobody in the history of humankind has picked The Supremes' lead singer, Diana Ross.

But if anyone needed any more reason not to pick her, then watching her run across a football pitch, whilst singing her hit single 'I'm Coming Out' before dragging a weak penalty effort wide of the left post, would all but confirm her position on the bench.

Thankfully, the unavailing strike wasn't for a Jules Rimet trophy. It was, however, to open the 1994 World Cup in the US, which was attended by 61,500 people at Chicago's Soldier Field stadium.

5 Pat Nevin vs Manchester City, November 1984

If the decision to award this penalty in the first place was soft, then it still had nothing on the attempt itself. When Pat Nevin stepped up to the penalty mark, it could have been by fault of the commentator's curse when Barry Davies remarks: "They haven't had a good record, last season and this, with taking penalties."

Pat Nevin, Chelsea's diminutive Scottish winger, took the shortest imaginable run-up – if it could even be described as a run-up – before rolling the ball through the thick mud and apologetically into the gloves of Man City's Alex Williams.

"Nevin….Oh, dear oh dear, I don't believe it," Davies sighed after the ball struggled to reach the goal. "I hope I'm not being too unkind to Pat Nevin, a player of undoubted quality. But that has to be the worst penalty I've ever seen at this level of football."

In total, Chelsea would have a dirty dozen of missed penalties in the 1983-85 period, but it was Nevin's damp squib that sticks out in the memory.

4 Neymar vs Colombia, November 2012

Neymar was the young player to watch in 2012, with his dazzling showboating talents a testament to a blossoming Brazilian ready to take on the world with his feet.

At the time, he was also one of 10 players up for a Puskas Award. But had FIFA seen his penalty against Colombia late into this friendly, they might've wanted to reconsider their decision.

The 20-year-old had an opportunity to put his nation in front from 12 yards, but the penalty was sent so high that nobody is sure, even now, in 2023, whether the ball has returned to Earth or if it's still in orbit.

Better yet, it was only a friendly, which tells you everything you need to know about just how awful the miss was when it still made it this high on the list.

3 Ademola Lookman vs West Ham, November 2020

Ademola Lookman knew his penalty miss against West Ham was bad when Pat Nevin joined in on the gag, joking that at least his reached the goal. But if it was the shot power that got the brunt of criticism when he misfired a spot-kick during the behind-closed-doors era of the Premier League against West Ham, the context and technique is sure to only add to the blushes.

In the 98th minute, the Fulham striker decided to show off and attempt a Panenka in the hope of equalising and earning a valuable point away from home early into the winter's fixture congestion. But the result was an overconfident blunder that barely reached the goal, as fancy doesn't always breed success.

2 Asamoah Gyan vs Uruguay, July 2010

Had Asamoah Gyan scored this penalty against Uruguay in the 2010 World Cup quarter-finals, Ghana would have become the first-ever African team to advance to a World Cup semi. Instead, the miss, which the now-retired striker reverberated the crossbar with, will haunt him forever.

After Luis Suárez pulled off a trademark Luis Suárez moment when he used his hand to claw the ball off the goalline and stop a certain goal, the Uruguayan maverick slowly back-pedalled into the changing rooms, keeping his eyes on the unfolding drama to get a clearer picture of his nation's fortunes before his early bath.

Gyan's resulting miss meant that Ghana slumped out of the World Cup when Uruguay ironically went on to win the resulting penalty shootout. Incredibly, the Ghanaian explained in the weeks that followed that he took 20 penalties in training the day before and scored every single one of them.

But when it mattered most, nerves vanquished mental steel.

1 Roberto Baggio vs Brazil, July 1994

There's a saying in Italy: "Socrates died poisoned; Baggio died standing."

The saying is often used to suggest that there are two different ways to face death: with courage and acceptance, or with fear and regret. Socrates’ death is seen as an example of the former, while Baggio’s (footballing) demise is seen as an example of the latter, reflecting the most costly penalty miss in football history as he ballooned his turn over the crossbar to hand the World Cup to Brazil in the 1994 World Cup final.

Perhaps not the worst miss of all time considering plenty have come before and after him to blaze a 12-yard attempt into row Z. However, context makes this one a stone-cold favourite.