Falling down a Yan Diomandé rabbit hole
...and adding the first 2-metre giant to our database
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.
- Yan Diomandé and a historic hatty
- The Kosovar Adam Wharton
- A 2-metre tall wine-drinking goose
- Kees Smit equals an Eredivisie record
- Yankuba Minteh can only be bettered by Kylian Mbappé
- Leopold Querfeld goes where no U-23 CB has gone before
- Even more Rayan Cherki madness
👶 Breakout Babies
At 16 years and 67 days old, Furkan Ayaz Özcan was the youngest player to feature across all leagues this past week, making just his fourth senior appearance for Gençlerbirliği. A special shoutout to Aleksa Damjanović who made his 6th league appearance for FK Crvena zvezda on his 17th birthday.
Two 16-year-olds featured in a Big Five League game this past week, albeit for a combined 11 minutes. But they both fit the modern centre-forward trend. At 16 years and 282 days old, 1.9m French-Senegalese striker Samba Konaté made his senior debut for RB Leipzig. At 16 years and 329 days old, 1.93m senior Luxembourg international but also England U-17 striker Brian Madjo came off the bench for Metz. Both clubs have invested in a big boy.
The youngest goalscorer was Manoël Verhaeghe (RWD Molenbeek) at 17 years and 256 days old. The only other 17-year-old to score was PSG’s Ibrahim Mbaye (17-316). The youngest assist-provider was Alfredo Agustin Aliaga Rojas (18-24, Wilstermann) in the Bolivian Primera División while Quentin Ndjantou Mbitcha (18-136), Mbayé’s PSG teammate, was the youngest to do so in a Big Five League game.
⚽️ G/A 🅰️
Yan Diomandé was the only under-23 player to be directly involved in 3+ goals across all league games this past week. And the milestones tumbled.
