Manchester United Wonderkid In Line To Set New Nigerian, World Record; Included In UYL Squad

Published: December 10, 2018

Precocious Nigerian striker Shola Shoretire is in line to make his debut for Manchester United in the UEFA Youth League when they tackle Valencia at Estadio Antonio Puchades on Wednesday afternoon.

Ahead of the meeting between both teams, the official website of UEFA has updated the squad list of Manchester United, with Shoretire making the cut.

The match day six UYL fixture is a dead-rubber for the Red Devils as they are already through to the next round of the competition with 13 points accumulated from five matches in Group H.

Shola Shoretire would set two records if he is handed game time by manager Nicky Butt and the one that concerns us here in Africa is that he could become the youngest player of Nigerian descent to feature in the UEFA Youth League, aged 14 years, 10 months and 10 days.

The current record of Nigeria's youngest debutant belongs to Ajax Amsterdam whizkid Dillon Hoogewerf who was aged 15 years and 9 months when he came off the bench for the Dutch club in their 8-1 rout of AEK Athens last month.

In addition, Shoretire could overtake Mile Svilar as the youngest ever player to feature in the UYL.

The Belgian was aged 15 years, 20 days when he debuted for Andelecht against Galatasaray on 16 September 2014.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel

Photo Credit : hkjc.com