ANPYamal Makes History as Youngest Player at European Championship

ANPYamal is number one on the list of youngest European Championship players

NOS Voetbal•gisteren, 10:09

From very young debutants to very old scorers and from beautiful long shots to clumsy own goals: the European Championship in Germany has been very entertaining so far. And that produces special figures.

We have listed the most striking statistics, records and anniversaries, with the help of data supplier Opta.

Very young and very old

Lamine Yamal was 16 years and 338 days old when he played the first group match at this European Championship on behalf of Spain. This made him the youngest player ever to play at a European Championship. You can’t tell from his play: Yamal seems to have been around for years and is one of the Spaniards’ standout players.

Off the field, however, Yamal’s age is an issue: as a high school student, he still has to do homework between practices and games. There was also the fear that he would not be allowed to play evening games, because under German law, minors are not allowed to work after 11 p.m.

The Germans themselves are also counting on the youth. With Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz (both 21 years old), the youngsters steal the show for the host country. They both scored in the opening match and that was immediately a European Championship record: never before have two players of 21 or younger scored for the same country in a European Championship match.

Pro ShotsMusiala en Wirtz

Furthermore, the Turk Arda Güler cannot be left out of this overview. He became the youngest player ever to score a goal on his European Championship debut (19 years and 114 days), a record he took over from none other than Cristiano Ronaldo. And it was not the least goal either.

At the same time, there are also plenty of older players at this European Championship. For example, the Portuguese Pepe (41) and Ronaldo (39) became the oldest outfield players ever to play at a European Championship. They did not score yet.

Luka Modric did that. With his goal against Italy, the 38-year-old Croatian captain became the oldest goalscorer ever at a European Championship final round. A record that may not last long: with one goal, Ronaldo (or Pepe) takes over this honor.

Own goals

A painful moment for Donyell Malen was his own goal against Austria, but perhaps there is a statistic that eases the pain a little. Malen was not the only one with his own goal at this European Championship, he was already the seventh.

That is a remarkable amount. Only at the 2020 European Championship were more own goals scored in the entire tournament (11). It almost never happened at tournaments before that: at all European Championships from 1980 to 2016, there were in total only scored eight own goals. What is going on here?

ANPMalen shot the ball past his own goalkeeper

We also wrote about it before: the incredible number of goals from distance. There have already been 15 shots from outside the penalty area, making this European Championship a record. That currently stands at 19, based on the 2020 European Championship.

How is it possible that so many goals are scored from a distance? It seems that modern players are simply better at shooting. At the last two European Championships, around 4 percent of all long-range shots went in. That may not sound like much, but that is, for example, twice as many as at the 2012 European Championship (1.9 percent) and three times as many as at the 2008 European Championship (1.3 percent).

Eriksen the king of the standard situations

It is one of the most beautiful football stories from the recent past: Christian Eriksen is again throwing beautiful corners and free kicks at this European Championship, after he collapsed three years ago and was in mortal danger. His fine kicking technique even earned him a record this year.

Eriksen created nine chances from set pieces in the group stage. That is the joint highest number of any player in a European Championship group stage since the group stage was introduced (1980). Only Scot Gary McAllister ever managed to achieve this number, in 1992 (also 9).

Creative Gakpo

Cody Gakpo can also talk about creating chances. He has already done that eight times from open play, so without corners and free kicks. This makes him the third best creative from open play at this European Championship, after Turkey player and Arnhemmer Ferdi Kadioglu (10) and German Joshua Kimmich (9).

ANPGakpo fits the bill

Have you ever heard of Giorgi Mamardashvili? The figures say that the Georgian is the best goalkeeper at this European Championship.

According to Opta’s Expected-goals model, Mamardashvili should have already conceded almost eight goals. However, he only conceded four goals, which means he has the best score of all goalkeepers at the tournament.

Apart from the complicated models, Mamardashvili also visually packs a lot of balls. He made no fewer than 21 saves, making him 8 more saves than the next goalkeepers on this list.

OptaThe shots that Mamardashvili fired at his goal

There are plenty of records to be broken in the knockout stages, which will undoubtedly happen. If the last 15 matches of this European Championship are anything like the first 36, we can look forward to fun final weeks.