Lamine Yamal ends Spain's World Cup scoring drought and makes history

Lamine Yamal scored his first World Cup goal on Sunday in Spain’s match against Cape Verde, ending a 294-minute scoring drought for La Roja, the longest in the team’s World Cup history. The Barcelona star did it on his first World Cup start, aged 18 years and 343 days, only slightly older than teammate Gavi, who remains Spain’s youngest World Cup scorer at 18 years and 110 days.

With Yamal and Gavi, Spain became the first national team ever to have two different 18-year-old scorers in separate World Cups. Yamal’s goal also made him the eighth youngest goalscorer in World Cup history. Only Pele scored a World Cup opener at a younger age, when he was 17 years and 239 days old against Wales at the 1958 World Cup.

For comparison, Lionel Messi scored his first World Cup goal at 18 years and 357 days, while Kylian Mbappe did so at 19 years and 183 days. Yamal has been directly involved in six goals across his last seven starts in major tournaments. The article also noted that Pele remains the youngest scorer in World Cup history.

Elsewhere in the match, Mikel Oyarzabal became only the second player ever to contribute to three goals in the first 25 minutes of a World Cup game, after Laszlo Fazekas for Hungary against El Salvador in 1982. Spain led 3-0 by the 24th minute, its earliest such lead in a major tournament.