NESN

Belgian Soccer Player Ilombe Mboyo Shanks Penalty Kick, Quits as Team Captain (Video)

Ilombe Mboyo didn’t go out like a soccer samurai, as the headline suggests, but the Belgian striker had an eventful weekend nonetheless.

Mboyo was the club captain for Belgium’s AA Gent. He was also assigned to take penalty kicks. At least one of those descriptions no longer applies after the hilarious and shameful scenes in Gent’s Belgian Jupiler Pro League game against Waasland-Beveren on Saturday.

In the 15th minute, Gent was awarded a penalty kick and Mboyo cooly stepped forward to take it.  He tried to side-foot his shot past the goalkeeper, and he did … sort of.

The ball appeared to hit a divot and rolled horribly wide of net. It was a pivotal moment, as Gent went on to lose the game 2-0.

Mboyo’s miss is a sure-fire entrant into the hall of shame. His plaque will stand near that of Jonathan Soriano, whose effort remains in orbit, and Neymar’s miss, which might have left MetLife Stadium and landed in a  New Jersey swamp.

Unfortunately, Mboyo lost his temper after the game and had a heated confrontation with some fans. At the time, many thought the argument was about his technique from the penalty spot, but it turns out Mboyo was responding to racial insults fans allegedly hurled his way. The outburst led him to resign as captain, according to the Mail.

“I am the club captain,” Mboyo told a news conference on Monday. “I want respect. I play all the time at 100 percent. I missed a penalty but it happens. I did not mean to. I wanted to score.

“Maybe I would not have reacted if I wasn’t captain. To show that I shouldn’t have done so, I will no long wear the captain’s armband.”

Sometimes it’s best to laugh. Other times it’s best to cry. And then there are times when we can’t decide, so we do neither.

See Mboyo’s miss in the video below.

Have a question for Marcus Kwesi O’Mard? Send it to him via Twitter at @NESNsoccer, NESN Soccer’s Facebook page or send it here. He will pick a few questions to answer every week for his mailbag.

Photo via Facebook/Ilombe Mboyo