The youngest goalscorer in each of Europe’s five big leagues: Yamal but NOT Dowman… | OneFootball

Arsenal wonderkid Max Dowman has just become the Premier League’s youngest-ever goalscorer, although he doesn’t quite boast the all-time top-flight record. Who are the record-breaking history-making prodigies from around Europe, though?

We’ve dusted off the history books and done some digging to find the all-time youngest goalscorers across Europe’s big five leagues – the Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, La Liga and the English top flight.

Without further ado, here are the youngest goalscorers from each of Europe’s five biggest leagues.

La Liga – Lamine Yamal (Barcelona)

16 years, 87 days

Xavi Hernandez handed Lamine Yamal his La Liga debut with a brief cameo in the run-in of Barcelona’s 2023-24 title-winning campaign.

Yamal was Barcelona’s youngest debutant in over a century, and the fifth-youngest in the entire history of the Spanish top flight.

He became more of a first-team regular after turning 16 that summer, and it wouldn’t be long before he was getting on the scoresheet.

The prodigy walked the ball over the line, having been set up by Joao Felix, to halve the deficit in a 2-2 comeback draw against Granada.

Yamal never looked back from there and has broken all kinds of records since, from becoming Spain’s youngest debutant and goalscorer, to becoming the youngest-ever goalscorer at an international major tournament, to becoming the youngest player to notch 100 senior professional appearances in European football history.

And the records just keep coming. It’s scary to think what he’ll achieve if he continues on his current trajectory.

English Top Flight – Jason Dozzell (Ipswich Town)

16 years, 57 days

Football didn’t start in 1992, don’t you know?

Unlike Europe’s other four big leagues, which maintain records for their entire histories, we’ve got a weird situation in England whereby there’s particular attention paid only to the modern era after the shiny new rebrand backed by Sky Sports.

For example, Alan Shearer holds the distinction of being the ‘all-time top Premier League goalscorer’, but he’s fifth in the all-time top-flight rankings behind Jimmy Greaves, Steve Bloomer, Dixie Dean and Gordon Hodgson.

Likewise, Max Dowman might just have broken James Vaughan’s long-held record to become the youngest goalscorer of the Premier League era, but he’s second to Ipswich Town’s Jason Dozzell in the all-time top-flight rankings. Dowman was just 16 days off breaking the all-time record.

Dozzell was prolific as a youth and signed on schoolboy terms by Bobby Robson. He scored as a late substitute on his debut, a 3-1 victory over Coventry City in February 1984, and went on to play over 300 times for the Tractor Boys over the following decade, later turning out for Tottenham in the early Premier League years.

Interestingly enough, his son Andre Dozzell also scored on his Ipswich debut as a 16-year-old, though that was in the Championship back in April 2016.

Ligue 1 – Richard Krawczyk (Lens)

16 years, 105 days

A relatively lesser-known figure, Krawczyk became Ligue 1’s youngest-ever goalscorer when he notched the opener for Lens in a 2-1 victory away to Angers in 1963.

Krawczyk remained at Lens for another five years and later represented Metz and Reims before seeing out his twilight playing years back at his boyhood club. He earned one senior cap for France in the late 60s.

It’s somewhat remarkable that a talent factory like France, having produced numerous prodigiously gifted wonderkids over the years, has seen the midfielder’s record remain unbroken for over half a century.

In recent years, the likes of Neal Maupay and Warren Zaire-Emery opened their Ligue 1 accounts at the age of 16 but neither could quite match Krawczyk.

Serie A – Amedeo Amadei (Roma)

15 years, 280 days

Still the only footballer in the entire history of Europe’s five major leagues to score a goal before turning 16. He never looked back since scoring a consolation goal in a 5-1 defeat to Lucchese in May 1937.

A legendary figure of the 1940s and 1950s, Amadei scored hundreds for Roma, Inter and Napoli and still stands 16th in the all-time Serie A scoring charts, above the likes of Luca Toni, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Filippo Inzaghi.

Nicknamed the ‘eighth King of Rome’ long before Francesco Totti took on the same nickname, the striker grew up near the capital and enjoyed two spells at his hometown club.

Amadei won the Scudetto with the Giallorossi in 1941-42 and was inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame the year before his death, in 2012. He was posthumously named in the Italian Football Hall of Fame in 2018.

Bundesliga – Youssoufa Moukoko (Borussia Dortmund)

16 years, 28 days

The second-youngest goalscorer in the history of Europe’s five major leagues, Moukoko looked for all the world set to follow in the footsteps of Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham as another Borussia Dortmund money-maker.

A further 16 Bundesliga goals followed, but his career hasn’t quite developed as expected. After a so-so loan at Nice last season, Moukoko made a somewhat leftfield turn and signed for FC Copenhagen in the summer.

He’s still only 21 and may yet reach his potential, but it’s safe to say that his progress in these early years has not been linear.