Madjo scores at 17 years and 212 days, and PSG still retain the Super Cup

Paris Saint-Germain kept the UEFA Super Cup with a 2-1 win over Aston Villa at the Red Bull Arena in Salzburg, in a match that kicked off at 12.30am IST on Thursday. The trophy went to the Champions League holders, as expected. The story of the night did not.

A 17-year-old who was not supposed to be playing

Brian Madjo lashed Aston Villa’s equaliser into the roof of the net on the stroke of half-time, on his club debut and after missing two earlier chances. He is 17 years and 212 days old. That makes him the youngest scorer in the history of the Super Cup, and it is not close: the record he took belonged to Patrick Kluivert, who was 19 years and 220 days when he set it.

Eight days earlier, Madjo was not cleared to play at all. He joined Villa from Metz in January, but FIFA classed the move as an international transfer and blocked his registration under Article 19, the rule that stops clubs signing players from abroad before they turn 18. Madjo was born in Enfield, in north London, and had represented Luxembourg before switching to England, which is what muddied the paperwork. Villa took it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and won on 4 August. Without that ruling he would have been waiting until January 2027 for a competitive appearance.

Instead he got a European final, and a goal in it.

Kvaratskhelia opened it, Doue settled it

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia had put PSG in front on 20 minutes. Madjo’s finish just before the interval was the reward for a Villa side that spent the first half absorbing rather than chasing, and it changed the temperature of the game rather than the result.

Desire Doue scored what turned out to be the winner on 61 minutes, running onto an Ousmane Dembele pass. The flag went up straight away, the goal was checked, and the video review found that Matty Cash had been playing him onside. Villa had 30 minutes to find a second and could not, which is roughly what both managers had spent the build-up predicting for a fixture squeezed in three weeks after a World Cup.

Unai Emery had left out Ollie Watkins, Emiliano Martinez and Ezri Konsa, all of whom went to the World Cup and are due back in training over the weekend. He was clear afterwards about the trade-off. “We tried to avoid risk to some players, and of course they are very important players but it is important how we manage the players,” he said. “We need the players for the rest of the season.”

Emery’s Super Cup problem continues

Emery has now reached four Super Cup finals and lost all four, two of them with Sevilla and one with Villarreal before this. One of those defeats came against a Barcelona side managed by Luis Enrique, who was standing in the other technical area again in Salzburg.

He took the positives where they were available. “Today I think the team tactically responded fantastically. They looked PSG in the eyes,” Enrique said. “I wanted this trophy but I needed to prepare the match under the circumstances. I am proud of the players. But it’s not a win. We were playing for a trophy.”

Madjo and fellow teenager George Hemmings both came through the night with credit from their manager. “Their experiences and having days like today are very important,” Emery said, adding that Madjo “played today because in preseason he has showed his capacity to work”.

A record for PSG too

Luis Enrique’s side became only the third club to retain the Super Cup, after AC Milan in 1990 and Real Madrid in 2017. For a squad that sent 15 players to the World Cup and has had no pre-season worth the name, a first trophy of the season in August is a decent return on very little preparation.

“We knew it would be a tough game,” Luis Enrique said. “But we were able to play as we did because my players showed just what they are made of. It was a demonstration of what this team is made of.”

Villa go back to England with a defeat and a striker they were not allowed to name in a squad two weeks ago. Emery will take that trade for now.

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