The penalty spot is a lottery, a double-edged sword for the one who assumes the role of penalty taker: hero or villain.

Zico with Brazil, Baggio with Italy, Maradona with Argentina, Platini with France, Messi with Barcelona and PSG or Cristiano Ronaldo himself against Bayern.

The best players in the world have all missed penalties. Karim Benzema is no exception, although his recent record from the spot could be a cause for concern.

Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti knows from experience that no one is out of danger of a bad run and has already shown his full confidence in Karim Benzema.

"Last year he missed two against Osasuna, but Karim took the most important penalties last year like against City and scored them," Ancelotti added in his post-match press conference.

"He is the best penalty taker and he will continue to take them."

Benzema, for his part, is also very calm. He was disappointed not to have completed the comeback after having earned a penalty after an excellent control inside the area.

He scored another goal disallowed for offside by millimeters and had a great shot in the first half with a volley that went just wide.

It is true that Benzema is not in his best form, mainly because, as Ancelotti said, when he was improving his level after the start of the season, he got a knee injury that has kept him out of the team for a month.

He returned against Osasuna and went from strength to strength, but luck from the penalty spot has deserted him

Just a bump in the road for Benzema

The truth is that Karim accepted being the penalty taker with the departure of Ramos, something he was always denied in Madrid, first because it was Cristiano and then the Spanish defender.

As such his scoring record, compared to other scorers, suffered.

In the Champions League, for example, where he has a nice duel with Robert Lewandowski, with 89 goals to the Frenchman's 86, to be the third highest scorer in the competition after Cristiano and Messi.

Karim has scored three goals from penalties to the Polish player's 16.

Benzema's record on penalties was almost immaculate since he took over from Ramos. He had scored from all nine of his kicks.

His first miss did not come until last season, against Celta Vigo, which must be added the two saved by Herrera against Osasuna and the one that hit the crossbar this past matchday.

That's four failures in the last seven spot-kicks.