Falling down a Divin Mubama rabbit hole
How the hat-trick hero decapitates centre-backs with his box movement
Welcome to The Rabbit Hole.
This newsletter is collection of single-game stat leaders from the latest week of football. But beware: I will explore any tangent I feel is interesting and pull at every single thread until I have exhausted all potential insight.
- Divin Mubama is breaking necks with his box movement
- Matthis Abline is breaking ankles with his dribbling
- This Danish teenager is breaking windows with his trigger-happy shooting
👶 Breakout Babies
At 15 years and 208 days old, Luis Fragozo was the youngest player to feature in a game this past week. An Ecuador youth international but also able to represent Colombia, Fragozo played 10 minutes in CS Emelec’s 3-0 defeat to Macará in Ecuador’s top-flight play-off group for the final spot in the Copa Sudamericana. He featured five times in the regular season and became the youngest debutant in the LigaPro era (since 2019) when he made his debut at 15 years and 19 days old in April. One to watch.
The youngest player to feature in a Big Five League game was Stephan Zagadou. At 17 years and 5 days old, Zagadou made his Ligue 1 debut in Le Havre’s 1-0 win against Brest, playing on the right side of a back three. The tidal wave of teenage French centre-backs is unrelenting.
Adrian Lahdo (17-312) was the youngest goalscorer this past week having opened the scoring for Hammarby against Degerfors. It was the midfielder’s first goal of the season. Across Europe’s Big Five Leagues, our main man Mohamed Kader Meïté was the youngest goalscorer at 18 years and 22 days old. I will bang the drum every time I get the chance: MKM is the future.
Llew Davies
Funnily enough, Meïté was also the youngest player to assist a goal in Europe’s Big Five Leagues this past week. Across all leagues, Axel Brönner (17-211, Norrköping) took the crown; Konstantinos Karetsas (17-348, Genk) was the only other 17-year-old to do so.
⚽️ G/A 🅰️
At 21 years and 7 days old, Divin Mubama was directly involved in FOUR of Stoke City’s five goals against Bristol City, scoring three and assisting another.
He became the 8th player under the age of 23 to be directly involved in 4+ goals in a single game across all leagues this season and the first to do so in the Championship. In fact, since 2014/15, Mubama is the second-youngest player to be directly involved in 4+ goals in a single Championship game after Abdul Fatawu Issahaku for Leicester City in April 2024.
Mubama generated 1.8 NPxG from four Shots against Bristol City (0.46 per Shot) from an Average Distance of 11.4 yards. Since the start of the 2018/19 season, only six U-23 players have recorded 1.8+ NPxG in a single Championship game.
Of those players, not only is Mubama the youngest on the list, but he also ranks first for NPxG per Shot. Perhaps most importantly, he was the only player to complete a hat-trick.
But should these numbers look like on the pitch?
