August 17th 2003
Manchester United’s opening game of the season against Bolton at Old Trafford.
Nicky Butt sees his number held up on the sideline after an hour, and trudges over to the sideline to see a young coltish Portuguese teenager ready to make his debut for the club.
Ronaldo was just 18 when he took the field that day in a 3-0 win, but even in 30 minutes his star quality was enough to alert everyone that a new world superstar of football had arrived as he won a penalty and generally terrorised the Bolton defence.
Tonight we may have seen another wonderkid make his full debut for Real Madrid at the age of 16 as Martin Odegaard came on for the Ballon d’Or winner just before the hour mark against Getafe.
The Norway international is the youngest player ever to make his senior debut for the club.
No pressure then.
He did at least come in when the game was 5-3 in favour of Real thanks to a Ronaldo hat-trick and the game ended 7-3 with the teenager showing some nice touches if nothing spectacular.
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