With less than half an hour played against Morocco, Kylian Mbappé had the perfect chance to open the scoring.
After being brought down in the box by Noussair Mazraoui, the Real Madrid man dusted himself off, placed the ball on the spot, put a little stutter in his run-up, and promptly saw his penalty saved by Yassine Bounou.
Popularised by Pelé, the stuttering penalty is enjoying a real moment. But why are players doing it? And is it really working?
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Why are players stuttering before their spot-kicks?
The thinking behind the stuttering penalty is fairly sound -- take the goalkeeper out of their rhythm and hope they might give you an insight into which way they are diving.
In the age of VAR, the method also offers an additional advantage: it can be very difficult for a goalkeeper to stay on their line if they don't know exactly when you're going to make contact with the ball.
It is something which was discussed by Harry Kane after his stuttered penalty was saved by Dominik Livakovic in England's 4-2 win over Croatia in their opening group game, only for the referee to signal for the spot-kick to be retaken.
"When I watched the clips, I saw that he likes to move early, pretty much," Kane told BBC Sport. "So I knew there was a chance, if I done the stutter, that he would come off the line.
"When it happened, I was 80% sure that it was off the line. I wasn't 100% sure. And then obviously, once it got retaken, I changed the technique a little bit.
"So yeah, these are all reasons why I do the research. And in the end, obviously, it worked out nicely for me."
Discussing the incident on BBC Sport, former England goalkeeper Joe Hart said it was "really difficult" for goalkeepers to deal with the stutter, adding:"Once [Kane has] brought this little stutter in, which he still hits the ball cleanly after, it's so difficult for the goalkeeper to hold his ground, like we saw there with Livakovic.
"He held for as long as he could and ended up falling off his line."
Are the stuttered penalties working?
This summer's World Cup has been historically bad when it comes to penalty conversion.
Just 39 of the 60 spot-kicks taken have been scored, a conversion rate of just 65% -- the lowest of any World Cup on record (since 1966), according to Opta.
That figure has dropped at every World Cup since 2014, which some have attributed to the increased emphasis on data allowing goalkeepers a better understanding of which direction the kicker might choose.
So, if the stuttered penalty can take a goalkeeper out of their rhythm and offer you the chance to potentially retake a penalty you miss, why doesn't every player do it?
Well, if this World Cup is anything to go by, it appears it can also take the penalty taker out of their own rhythm.
Mbappé's miss was the latest in what is becoming a long line of high-profile stuttering penalty misses this summer.
Bruno Guimarães, Jorgen Strand Larsen and Kane have all missed with the method, even if the latter scored the subsequent retake.
Lionel Messi also missed with a stuttered run-up against Austria in the group stage -- although he also saw his penalty saved against Egypt when he used a regular run-up.
In fact, 11 of the 26 stuttering penalties taken at this summer's World Cup (including Kane's first against Croatia, which was subsequently retaken) have been missed -- a conversion rate of just 57.6% -- according to the BBC.
It means that the stuttered run-up has been less successful than a regular approach, which has yielded 24 goals from 35 penalties (a 68% conversion rate), per the BBC.