After 31 years, after countless near-misses and close calls, the record that Super Eagles legend Nwankwo Kanu set as a teenage boy in Vienna still stands — and it will stand for at least another year. PETER AKINBO writes
Former Nigerian attacker Nwankwo Kanu remains the youngest player in history to win the UEFA Champions League after Arsenal’s bid to produce the player who would finally dethrone him ended in the most painful of fashions on Saturday night in Budapest.
Paris Saint-Germain beat the Gunners 4-3 on penalties following a 1-1 draw at the Puskás Aréna, with Gabriel Magalhães missing Arsenal’s fifth and final penalty to keep the cup in Parisian hands. The dream of a first European crown in Arsenal’s 140-year history was gone. And with it went the chance to consign Kanu’s landmark to history.
Max Dowman, 16 years old, had been named among Arsenal’s substitutes for the final, and the prospect of the teenager eclipsing Kanu had been one of the most compelling subplots of the occasion. Dowman was on the bench in Budapest, and had Arsenal won, and the youngster stepped onto that pitch, the record books would have been rewritten.
Instead, Kanu reigns on.
