Man Utd's Eric Bailly appeared to use 'no-look' penalty for AFCON miss in Egypt defeat | OneFootball

Eric Bailly missed the Ivory Coast's deciding penalty against Egypt on Wednesday night.

After 120 minutes of goalless action at the Japoma Stadium in Cameroon, the round of 16 clash at the Africa Cup of Nations had to be decided by the classic sporting lottery of a penalty shootout.

It truly is the cruellest of formats, but one in which both nations gave a good account of themselves with nine of the ten penalties rustling the net.

Egypt get the better of Ivory Coast

Nicolas Pepe, Ahmed Sayed, Ibrahim Sangaré, Amr El Solia, Omar Kamal, Maxwel Cornet, Mohamed Abdelmonem, Wilfried Zaha and Mohamed Salah all scored in a truly tense exchange.However, if there wasn't at least one player who misses then shootouts would go on forever and that unfortunate reality befell the aforementioned Bailly in the third round of strikes.

And it came in what many football fans have described as typically Bailly style given that the Manchester United man often going viral for, well, doing things in his own unique way.

Bailly's entertaining style of play

That's not a criticism, by the way, because the Ivorian is one of the Premier League's most underrated centre-halves regardless of the eccentricity with which he goes about his business.

That being said, there's no denying that Bailly's idiosyncratic approach to his penalty didn't exactly do him any favours with the 27-year-old channelling what you'd usually expect from a forward.

With a tiny run-up that ended in flashes of a Jorginho-like hop, there were facepalms around the world as Bailly's resulting shot was tipped on to the crossbar by Mohamed Abou Gabal.

Yes, that's right, the technique that Roberto Firmino has made famous with reverse angles showing that Bailly was looking in the opposite direction to where he was shooting upon kicking the ball.

Whether or not it was a quirk of his shooting style or a deliberate attempt to fool the goalkeeper remains to be seen, but the remarkable footage is most certainly deserving of a watch:

It doesn't look good, does it?

Fan reaction

The evidence is worrying

If it turns out that Bailly did indeed intend to fool the 'keeper with one of the most audacious stunts imaginable in such a high-profile shootout, it undoubtedly makes the miss additionally humiliating.

It's the type of technique that brings fans to their feet when it comes off, but - much like a Panenka - sparks outrage and disbelief that it was attempted in the first place when it doesn't.

As such, we can only hope that it was some sort of jerk, flinch or spasm on Bailly's behalf, but the footage married to the overall eccentricity of the run-up suggests it might well have been deliberate.

If that proves to be the case, then Bailly will struggle to live the miss down for a very, very long time.

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