The players who have won the most penalties, featuring Salah, Sterling & Ronaldo

Robin Bairner

• Updated: 14 May 2022 13:52 BST
• 3 min read

Manchester City attacker Raheem Sterling is the player who has won the most penalties in Europe’s Big 5 leagues since the beginning of the 2016/17 season.

Indeed, Sterling has won 18 spot kicks over the course of the last six campaigns, with Paris Saint-Germain’s Kylian Mbappe coming second on 16 and Ciro Immobile of Lazio third on 15.

Sterling finishing top of this ranking is unlikely to cause too much shock given that he was also embroiled in the controversial penalty incident that led to England beating Denmark in the semi-finals of Euro 2020, although both international and continental competitions are overlooked in this ranking.

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One player who has often been in the headlines due to his propensity of winning penalties is Liverpool attacker Mohamed Salah. Critics of his consider him a player who goes down too easily or is expert at instigating fouls from defenders, and he has won 14 spot kicks – the same number as Crystal Palace ace Wilfried Zaha.

Meanwhile, Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo features in this list having won nine. This is perhaps a little surprising given his stature, yet his long-time rival Lionel Messi does not make the top 20 at all. Indeed, Old Trafford colleague Marcus Rashford ties him.

Chelsea and Arsenal are represented by Timo Werner and Alexandre Lacazette respectively. Both are on 10.

Neymar is the other superstar name to make the grading, coming in with 11 – yet had the 2015/16 campaign been included he would have been far higher up the table as he won eight alone in that term.

Who wins the most penalties?