American soccer will have truly progressed when cases like the teenagers are common enough to be unremarkable
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here’s something about a 16-year-old making his debut among fully grown senior professionals that makes him look like a fawn. A scrawny, wobbly baby deer, the function of his arms and legs not yet figured out, jogging on to the pitch in a kit and shin guards that always seem a few sizes too big, like a boy wearing his dad’s suit.
So, too, appeared Mathis Albert when coming on in the 88th minute of Borussia Dortmund’s 4-0 romp over Freiburg on Sunday, which secured the team a place in next year’s Champions League.
While he barely had a touch of the ball, Albert got on the field at 16 years, 11 months and five days old. That made him three months younger than Giovanni Reyna had been in his debut in 2020, who in turn beat Christian Pulisic’s 2016 record for the youngest American to appear in the Bundesliga by two months. They all broke the record in a Dortmund jersey which Albert, remarkably, is the seventh American to wear.
