Chelsea made light work of Ajax in the Champions League on Wednesday night, crushing the out-of-form Dutch giants at Stamford Bridge in a 5–1 scoreline.
What was particularly remarkable about the game was the nature of the Chelsea side that did it. Enzo Maresca made 10 changes from the team that started the weekend’s Premier League win over Nottingham Forest, with only 21-year-old Romeo Lavia keeping his place.
At 21, the Belgian midfielder was a relative veteran of the side. Tosin Adarabioyo, 27, was the oldest.
Maresca handed starts to teenagers Marc Guiu, his first of the season after a loan at Sunderland was cancelled, Jorrel Hato and Estêvão. Jamie Gittens, Facundo Bounanotte and the aforementioned Lavia were all 21 or younger. The average age of the team was 22 years, 163 days, making this the second youngest side ever named by an English club in the Champions League—Arsenal still hold the record with a team from 2009 aged 21 years, 151 days for a dead rubber defeat to Olympiacos.
Guiu opened the scoring before Estêvão scored a penalty in first-half stoppage time. Tyrique George came off the bench at half-time and netted Chelsea’s fifth of the night quickly afterwards.
At the time of his goal, 19-year-old Guiu became Chelsea’s youngster ever goalscorer in a Champions League setting—the young Spaniard scored six in last season’s Conference League. But that record lasted only 32 minutes, until 18-year-old Estêvão lowered it again. George, also 19, is marginally younger than Guiu as well, meaning he started the night by writing his name in the club’s history books and bizarrely finishing it by slipping to third place on that list.
With three different teenagers finding the net in the same game, Chelsea became the first club in Champions League to achieve that particular feat.
“I’m very proud,” Maresca, who also handed minutes to 17-year-old Reggie Walsh and 19-year-old Josh Acheampong off the bench, said in response.
“It’s a special night for the club, for the young players. I think Guiu already scored for Chelsea five or six goals last year in the Conference League, Ty already scored also in the Premier League and Estêvão is exactly the same. It was a great night, especially for these young players and for the club.”
Discussing why the players he chose to use for the game were so young, Maresca replied: “It’s the strategy of the club. We have so many young players. I think already last season we were the youngest squad in the history of the Premier League, so this season we continue in the same way.”
