Leave it to Lionel Messi to do something that will have soccer fans buzzing for a day or three.

In this case, it was a semi-controversial move: A penalty kick that he did not aim at goal, instead knocking it sideways to Barcelona teammate Luis Suarez, who subsequently scored.

Some were amazed and giddy at the notion. (Giddy is a sort of default setting for Messi fans.)

Some thought it an unsporting gesture, showboating against another over-matched Spanish League team.

And it all made me think of Theyab Awana of the UAE and perhaps the most audacious penalty kick of them all, which I saw live in Al Ain, on the hot night of July 17, 2011.

Here is the New York Times file on the Messi/Suarez goal, along with several other embedded videos of interesting/memorable penalties, some gone-badly-wrong penalties …

Also in that link is the Theyab Awana penalty for the UAE national team in a friendly match with Lebanon, in Al Ain, in 2011.

I was there. Awana’s back-heel penalty may be the only such shot attempted at a senior national level. And it becomes more memorable when we recall that Awana, 21, was dead a few months later.

I recapped the Awana show in depth, here, but I will go over the basics again.

The UAE was routing a weak and understrength Lebanon squad.

Awana, who was just making his way in the UAE senior side, came on in the 70th minute. In the 78th minute he was taken down in the box. Penalty for the UAE.

Awana marched over to the spot as if he took national-team penalties all the time (His career total of senior national team games? Nine.), and as he approached the ball he pivoted until his back was to the goal and hit the ball, with surprising pace, with the back of his right foot.

Lebanon’s goalkeeper seemed discombobulated, and failed to make a serious effort to stop the shot — perhaps because he was flabbergasted at what was going on. The ball rolled by him to his left for a goal in the 79th minute.

The game was televised nationally in the UAE, so Awana’s goal was never going to be seen only by the handful of people in the stadium.

As I note in the linked file, Awana was famous/infamous 24 hours after the penalty rolled in. Today, it is estimated video of his back-heel penalty has been seen more than 3 million times.

The UAE’s coach at the time, Srecko Katanec, was not amused. He pulled Awana out of the match in the 80th minute and later called the shot “disrespectful”. Awana may have been punished by the Football Association; it was never confirmed.

One of my colleagues, back then, agreed that it was a bad idea.

After the initial buzz of that night, not much went right in 2011 for that UAE team.

In early September, the Emiratis lost at home to Kuwait in a World Cup qualifier and on the road to, oops, Lebanon, with Awana out with an injury, and the UAE’s hopes of advancing to the final round of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup were dead.

Less than three weeks later, Theyab Awana was dead, killed when the car he was driving slammed into a truck parked on the shoulder of a road in Abu Dhabi. He may have been texting at the time. I noted his death on this blog, as well.

He is remembered, now, for a field at the Football Association headquarters named after him, and by UAE fans for the player he might have been, had he lived. The fact that he brought any attention to UAE football seems to overpower the fact that a lot of people considered his PK to be contemptible.

Overwhelmingly, he is known for that moment of audacity from the penalty-kick spot. It will keep him current whenever talk of odd penalty kicks comes up, but he could have been much more than a one-off trick-shot performer.