Lamine Yamal’s World Cup debut was not the statement many expected from Spain’s teenage superstar.
He played only 19 minutes as Spain were held to a frustrating draw by Cape Verde.
However, his second match, against Saudi Arabia, is already making waves before half-time.
Lamine Yamal joins Pele in rare World Cup territory
Yamal needed little time to turn anticipation into history against Saudi Arabia. He found the net after a great pass from Mikel Oyarzabal and quickly put Spain 1-0 up against Saudi.
Opta credited the Barcelona winger with becoming only the second player aged 18 or younger to open the scoring in a FIFA World Cup match.
The only previous player to do it was Pele, who was 17 when he opened the scoring for Brazil against Wales in 1958.
That places Yamal in extraordinary company, and it also moves him beyond another modern benchmark.
Centre Goals reported that the Barcelona star scored his first World Cup goal at 18 years and 343 days old.
That made him younger than Kylian Mbappe when the France forward scored his first World Cup goal, aged 19 years and 183 days.
Gavi still holds Spain’s youngest World Cup goalscorer record
Yamal’s goal was historic, but it did not take every Spanish age record.
Gavi remains Spain’s youngest goalscorer in World Cup history after his goal against Costa Rica in 2022.
The midfielder scored in Spain’s 7-0 win when he was 18 years and 110 days old, becoming the youngest World Cup scorer since Pele at the time.
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