Photo – Inter Wing-Back Ivan Perisic The First Player To Score Penalties With Both Feet In Over A Decade: “Ambidextrous”

Inter wing-back Ivan Perisic converted an early penalty in Inter’s Serie A match against Lazio yesterday to give the Nerazzurri an early lead, dispatching the spot kick confidently despite not being the team’s usual first-choice penalty taker.

As football statistics company Opta pointed out in a tweet, this made him the first player in over a decade to have scored a penalty with both feet in Serie A since the company began collecting data, with the Croat having taken the penalty past Bianconeri keeper Pepe Reina with his right foot despite normally being left-footed.

The tweet reads, “1 – Ivan #Perisic is the first Serie A player to score a right-footed penalty goal and to score a left-footed penalty goal since 2004/05 (since Opta collected this kind of data). Ambidextrous.”