Chelsea became the first team in Champions League history to have three teenage scorers as they secured a 5-1 win over a woeful Ajax side at Stamford Bridge.
Marc Guiu, 19, was the first teenager to score and briefly became Chelsea’s youngest Champions League goalscorer in a calamitous minute and 17 seconds for Ajax after captain Kenneth Taylor was sent off.
However, Guiu’s record was broken 33 minutes later when Estevao Willian, 18, scored the third of three penalties – after spot-kicks from Enzo Fernandez and Wout Weghorst – and a long-range strike from Moises Caicedo in a chaotic first half.
Chelsea made three changes at half-time, including forward Tyrique George, who scored from just inside the box three minutes after coming on to become the third teenager on the scoresheet.
Substitute midfielder Reggie Walsh, 17, then became the youngest player to appear for the club in the Champions League and the second youngest Englishman after Jack Wilshere for Arsenal.
It was a poor performance from Ajax, who have won this competition four times, with Taylor’s high and late lunge setting the tone.
And it was further indiscipline which effectively sealed the result. Weghorst, who had earlier scored from the spot after a foul by Tosin Adarabioyo, made a poor tackle on Fernandez, the Chelsea midfielder picking himself up to score the resultant penalty after 45 minutes.
Remarkably, Ajax gave away another penalty as Youri Baas trod on Estevao, who picked himself up to score in the sixth minute of first-half added time.
After George scored the fifth, both sides dropped in intensity.
Such was Chelsea’s dominance that manager Enzo Maresca began resting players like Caicedo, Fernandez and Adarabioyo, making all five changes by the 65-minute mark.
Ajax were once giants of European football but have now lost all three Champions League matches and sit bottom of the 36-team table. They are also without a win in four matches in all competitions.
Meanwhile, Chelsea have won back-to-back matches in Europe since losing their opening game at Bayern Munich, with a trip to Azerbaijan to face Qarabag next.
Ten players aged 21 or younger featured for Chelsea in this non-contest in west London.
And with an average age of just 22 years and 163 days, this was also the second youngest starting XI by an English side in the Champions League, bettered only by Arsenal against Olympiakos almost 16 years ago.
Forwards Estevao, Guiu and George will all remember scoring their first Champions League goal while Walsh’s record as the youngest player to play in the competition, having just turned 17 on Monday, could stand for some time after taking it from now-Tottenham striker Dominic Solanke.
Maresca’s use of his players, with Josh Acheampong, Jorrel Hato, Romeo Lavia, Jamie Gittens and Buonanotte also being either 21 or younger, will have delighted the hierarchy at Stamford Bridge.
The only surprise was not seeing 16-year-old winger Ryan Kavuma-McQueen make his debut having made a senior matchday squad for the first time.
Chelsea have not used a player over 30 since the beginning of last season.
And this team selection and outing will have delighted the sporting directors and owners, who entered the dressing room again after the match, just as they do after every game regardless of the result.
They have purposely built the youngest team in the Premier League, which is also among the youngest in Europe’s top five leagues, with a view to seeing them grow together and someday challenge for major honours.
It is a model akin to the one that Ajax, one of the great talent factories in European football, have been famed for.
However, the Amsterdam club look in disarray and are a shell of Erik ten Hag’s team that drew 4-4 at Stamford Bridge with nine men in 2019, with their best academy product, Hato, having been poached by the Blues in the summer.
BBC
