13 Cheekiest Penalty Kicks of All Time

Pele once said that a penalty was a cowardly way to score. No news on if he thinks making them cheeky increases the bravado factor a bit.

Sometimes they are individual efforts and sometimes two heads are better than one. Whatever the reason, the players on this list decided to have some fun at the penalty spot.

Here are the cheekiest penalties of all time.

Japanese Play Acting: Hisato Sato

No. 5 does a brilliant acting job here as he keeps all eyes on him in the lead up to the penalty. He should get an assist for his work. Really.

It was some ingenious stuff from this team and a well-executed penalty in the end.

Zidane: 2006 World Cup

Zinedine Zidane: "I bet you can't stop this one Gigi."

Chips penalty, it goes off the crossbar over the line and out. Giangluigi Buffon and the Italians begin to protest but the penalty is rightly given.

Zidane: "Hehe, told ya."

This wasn't a long-range bomb or anything of the sort, but I was screaming like it was after it scored.

Neymar's Illegal Penalty

Yes, this penalty is illegal but it's also cheeky. Pele used to do this often and, well, it seems this referee had no problem with it. To be fair, the opposing players didn't seem to care too much either.

Some More Japanese Creativity

So. Does this team spend a lot of time coming up with these penalties? It's another nice effort here but the defender did almost get in on the act.

And what do you know, its No. 11 returning the favour to his partner in crime this time around.

Theyab Awana's Backheel

Francesco Totti's was cool, but that was practice. Theyab Awana demoralised and most certainly annoyed his opposition with this very cheeky back-heel penalty.

Johan Cruyff's One-Two in the Box

Well, the penalty is a set piece. Ajax certainly treated it as such and took a quick penalty to fool their opponents. It had to be executed well and it was.

This went a lot better than Thierry Henry and Robert Pires' botched effort for Arsenal.

Ezequiel Calvente Hits It with the Wrong Foot?

I'm sure we've all tried this at home. Credit has to go Ezequiel Calvente for taking it out into the professional arena.

Penalty Teamwork

Well, he definitely had everyone fooled for this penalty. I certainly thought a kick was coming but his quick stop must have put the keeper off enough to make it an easy finish for his teammate.

What a Flipping Penalty

Um. Yeah. I'm still trying to figure out how the penalty taker incorporated the flip and still produced a good shot. I'm sure he left the keeper with a red face because that was a really cheeky effort.

El Hadj Diouf Barely Kicks It

You would expect this from El Hadj Diouf. You really would. He barely kicks the ball, it bounces, I repeat, bounces, and it still goes in.

Antonin Panenka

I mean, there are such things as Panenka penalties. It was a cheeky effort from the Czech player.

Rik Coppens

The penalty starts at about the 1:30 mark.

Turns out Johan Cruyff and Ajax weren't the first to do a little one-two from a penalty. That credit goes to Rik Coppens.

Martin Ericsson

I wouldn't say this is how it's done but it is pretty cheeky.