Young Perfect Coulibaly during his Super League debut last weekend.image: instagram
Perfect Coulibaly came on as a substitute on Sunday during FC Zurich’s rout in Lugano. Despite his teenage face, he is not the youngest to have played on the first division pitches.
28.11.2024, 16:5428.11.2024, 18:24
FC Zurich sank in the league on Sunday. Trailing 3-0 after half an hour of play, Ricardo Moniz’s men ultimately lost 4-1 in Lugano, on the pitch of a direct competitor for the title. They also ceded their leadership position to FC Basel. A match which will therefore not go down in the annals of the club.
The game nevertheless took on a historic character, following the entry into play in the 78th minute of Perfect Coulibaly (replacing Mounir Chouiar). The young man became this weekend the first player born in 2009 to take part in a Super League match, but also the youngest to wear an FCZ jersey in 87 years.
At 15 years, 10 months and 7 days, the striker also happens to be one of the most pressured footballers in our championship.
Perfect Coulibaly does not, however, hold the record for precocity. Because since the creation of the Super League in 2003, three players started at a younger age, notes the Swiss Football League (SFL).
Marvin Akahomen
The FC Basel central defender made his first at the highest level recently: on April 30, 2023 against Winterthur. He was then 15 years, 9 months and 15 days old. Now aged 17, Marvin Akahomen continues his training in the Rhine city. He plays with the club’s U21s, but regularly appears in Fabio Celestini’s group. He has already played four professional matches, including one this season.
Two weeks after his debut in the Super League, Marvin Akahomen was started against FC St. Gallen by Heiko Vogel, then interim coach of FCB, due to lack of reinforcements.
Image: KEYSTONE
Eggs Morality
The GC winger was 5 days younger than Akahomen when he debuted at 15 years, 9 months and 10 days on the pitch for FC Aarau on May 13, 2010. Adili had a dream day that day, as he scored on his first start for Grasshopper, becoming the youngest scorer in Super League history. However, what followed was not of the same ilk. Transferred to FC Basel when he came of age, Endogan Adili was exiled two years later to Galatasaray, where he never played in the first team, mainly due to repeated injuries to his cruciate ligaments.
A time loaned to FC Wil, he found no employer on his return to Switzerland, and therefore said goodbye to professional football.
Sasha Studer
The youngest player to play in the Super League is a goalkeeper. On April 1, 2007, Sascha Studer defended the goal of FC Aarau during a match at Tourbillon, during which he conceded only one goal. His age at the time? 15 years, 6 months and 18 days. The young goalkeeper, however, never really had a career and only played two Super League matches. Although he certainly benefited from more playing time in the Challenge League, Studer’s professional career quickly ended at the age of 23, after stints with Winterthur and Babelsberg in the German D3.
There are even earlier in the first division
But we have to go back to before the creation of the Super League. The midfielder Johann Vogelwho played for PSV Eindhoven, AC Milan and Betis Sevilla, debuted for GC against Xamax on July 22, 1992, at 15 years, 4 months and 14 days. This is the record if we include the National League (1933/1944) and the National League A (1944/2003), according to site data Transfermakt. Another player is ahead of Perfect Coulibaly over this period: defender René Hasler, whose career at FC Lucerne was launched in 1964, when he was only 15 years, 9 months and 25 days old.
Perfect Coulibaly is therefore warned. His appearance at the age of 15 against FC Lugano in no way guarantees him a long and rich career like that of Johann Vogel, 94 caps for the national team. He will have to prove his talent and avoid injuries for a long time to come, to reach professionalism and then last at the highest level.
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