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In a moment that went down in Arsenal history for all the wrong reasons, Thierry Henry and Robert Pires combined to produce an embarrassing penalty mix-up in a game against Manchester City in 2005.
The Gunners were awarded a penalty in the second half of the fixture, and Pires stepped up to the spot. But rather than shoot, the Frenchman attempted to pass to Henry.
It all went wrong when Pires failed to make proper contact. Suddenly he was stood over the ball having touched it, unable to touch it again, with Henry running in for a pass that wouldn’t come. Manchester City cleared the ball to safety.
In an amusing recreation of the moment, Galatasaray’s Kerem Akturkoglu and Mauro Icardi tried to do what Henry and Pires couldn’t in a match against Istanbulspor on Tuesday.
Akturkoglu ran up and passed the ball to Icardi, who received possession and slotted the ball… wide of the post.
You can watch the incident here or below from the timestamp 3:06.
Similar to Henry and Pires, Icardi will likely get away with the mistake for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, like Arsenal all those years ago, Galatasaray went on to win the game.
Funnily enough, Icardi scored the winning goal, assisted by Akturkoglu. Just five minutes after their penalty mistake, the same two players had combined to give their side the lead.
On top of that, Icardi has a strong status with the Galatasaray fans after his goals helped them to the Super Lig title last season.
You shudder to think what the reaction might be if less popular Arsenal and Galatasaray players had tried the same tricks in a less successful era for their teams.
In these cases, the players involved can laugh it off.
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