Yamal Scores First World Cup Goal as Spain Rout Saudi Arabia 4-0

Lamine Yamal needed 10 minutes of his first World Cup start to do something only Pele had managed before him.

The 18-year-old slid a right-footed finish in at the far post on Sunday in Atlanta, the opening goal in Spain's 4-0 win over Saudi Arabia, and became only the second player aged 18 or younger to open the scoring in a World Cup match. The first was Pele, at 17, in 1958.

At 18 years and 343 days, Yamal was also a fortnight younger than Lionel Messi had been when Messi scored his own maiden World Cup goal. For a player who arrived in the United States carrying the weight of comparisons to both, it was a tidy way to answer them: not with a speech, with a finish.

The rest was a rout. Mikel Oyarzabal, who drove in the cross for Yamal's goal, scored twice himself in the 21st and 24th minutes to make it 3-0 inside half an hour. Saudi Arabia's afternoon was summed up after the break, when Hassan Altambakti turned the ball into his own net in the 49th minute. With the result settled, Spain withdrew both Yamal and Oyarzabal, the work done.

The wider picture is what should worry Group H. Spain managed Yamal's minutes carefully coming in, and still got a goal and an assist out of an hour from a teenager who said before the tournament he was not fully fit. The margin over Saudi Arabia flatters no one in particular, but a side that can rest its best player with a three-goal lead before halftime is a problem the rest of the draw now has to plan around.

It travels alongside the tournament's early upsets, the kind that made Curacao's goalless stand against Ecuador the story of the same weekend. Spain are the opposite case, a heavyweight doing exactly what heavyweights are supposed to, only with a teenager out front who keeps turning ordinary group games into history lessons.