Irish teenager Michael Noonan made his debut for Shamrock Rovers on Thursday.
The 16-year-old striker became the second largest scorer in the European club competition, and the youngest in the conference league when he scored the winner of Rovers in a 1-0 qualifying series victory against Molde.
NII LAMPTEY remains the youngest goalscorer of any senior competition from the UEFA club, pulling at home for Anderlecht during a 3-2 defeat against Roma in the UEFA Cup at the age of 16 and 100 days in 1991 .
At 16, 197 days, noon Romelu Lukaku Third after the Belgian striker scored in December 2009 for Anderlecht against Ajax in the Europa League at the age of 16 and 218 days.
“Has played this one,” wrote Noonan on his Instagram account thereafter.
The Dublin team is the first Irish team to play in a direct elimination phase of a European competition.
The return match is next Thursday at the Tallaght Stadium in Dublin, and the victory in Norway sparked the sale of 1,000 tickets after the final whistle. The capacity is around 10,000.
Noonan, who had a trial with Manchester City, joined Rovers in January from St Patrick’s Athletic, where he had become the youngest starter of the saints at 15 years old, 9 months old.
He is an international under 17 for Ireland.
Rovers coach Stephen Bradley said it was an easy call to insert Noonan into the training after looking at the teenager to perform well against the back of the veteran in training.
“You could say that he was ready. I made the decision very early to play it, said it only late because I didn’t want it to play in his mind,” said Bradley. “He lives, breathes and sleeps football.
“You have this attitude and then you combine it with the capacity, you have half a chance. And it definitely has half a chance.”
The information from Reuters and the Associated Press was used in this story.
