Unless any of the great Knowledge populace knows better, then
yes, yes he is Pete. In case you missed the story, Mauricio
Baldivieso, a striker for Aurora in the Bolivian league, was sent
on as a 39th-minute substitute in a first division match against La
Paz on Sunday, three days before his 13th birthday – which is
today, incidentally.
Although it reportedly all ended in tears, the result of some
rough marking from the La Paz defence, the player's coach, the
former Bolivia
midfielder Julio Cesar Baldivieso (also the player's father)
offered the following impartial assessment of his son's ability:
"I'm very proud, he's got a lot of talent."
According to reports in South America, Baldivieso beat a record
set by Peru's Fernando Garcia, who turned out for Juan Aurich in
2001 aged 13. It is, however, all but impossible to verify the age
of some other whipper-snappers who may have bounded out in the
men's game before their voices had broken.
The former Manchester United player Souleymane Mamam, for
instance, is still listed by Fifa as the
youngest-ever player in a World Cup qualifying match, supposedly
aged 13 years and 310 days when he appeared for Togo against Zambia
in May 2001. Presumably this was not his senior debut, meaning it's
possible he was close to Baldivieso's age when he first stepped
out, although question marks have continued to hover over Maman's
claims throughout his career. When he appeared for Royal Antwerp on
loan from United, for instance, the club listed his year of birth
as 1985, meaning he was at least 16 at the time of the Togo-Zambia
match.
The Ghana-born United States international Freddy Adu first
attracted the attentions of the Washington Post when he was but 12
years old, and there was much Adu in Sports Illustrated in 2003, when the
striker was 13. He had to wait until 14 to sign a professional
contract at DC United, however, and was two months shy of 15 when
he made his full debut.
That makes Adu barely younger than the youngest-ever verified
league player in this country: the Barnsley striker Reuben
Noble-Lazarus, who was 15 years 45 days old when he appeared
against Ipswich Town last September. As for the English top flight,
Fulham's defender Matthew Briggs is the youngest ever to grace the
Premier League turf. He was 16 years and 65 days old when he came
on as a substitute in May 2007, but has yet to make a first-team
appearance since.
