Max Dowman tops 10 youngest Champions League players: Where are they now?
Arsenal prodigy Max Dowman is now the Champions League’s youngest-ever player. What happened to the other teenagers in the top 10?
Dowman came off the bench for Arsenal to become the first 15-year-old to play in the Champions League.
He immediately goes to the top of this list featuring, among others, Lamine Yamal. But there are also some cautionary tales for anyone assuming Dowman will now take Europe and the world by storm…
Here are the 10 youngest players to feature in the Champions League…
10) Charis Mavrias (Panathinaikos)
16 years, 242 days
Making his first senior appearance for Panathinaikos, Mavrias came off the bench for the last 12 minutes of the Greek side’s 0-0 draw with Rubin Kazan in 2010/11.
The right-sided player made 54 appearances and became a Greece international before moving to Paolo Di Canio’s Sunderland in 2013. Mavrias managed only seven appearances for the Black Cats, sandwiched like a stottie around a loan return to Panathinaikos.
From Wearside, Mavrias flitted around Germany, Croatia, Scotland and Cyprus before returning to Greece where, aged 31, he currently plays for Panetolikos.
9) Warren Zaire-Emery (PSG)
16 years, 232 days
Zaire-Emery became the youngest player to represent PSG in the Champions League when he came off the bench during a 7–2 victory over Maccabi Haifa in October 2022, two-and-a-half months after becoming the French club’s youngest player in any official competition. Later in the 2022/23 season, 22 days before his 17th birthday, the midfielder became the youngest player to start a Champions League knockout game in a 1-0 defeat to Bayern Munich.
Since his breakthrough season, Zaire-Emery has become the youngest PSG player to do, well, pretty much everything. He was named Ligue 1 Young Player of the Season in 2023/24, and last season he made 55 appearances in PSG’s Treble-winning campaign.
Zaire-Emery is also a France international with seven caps, having scored the all-important third in a 14-0 win over Gibraltar on his national team debut in 2023.
8) Francesco Camarda (AC Milan)
16 years, 226 days
After scoring 485 goals in 89 matches for Milan’s academy, (five-plus per game? Right…) Camarda became the youngest player in Serie A history aged 15 years, 260 days. Eleven months later, in October 2024, the forward was the youngest Italian to play in the Champions League when he came off the bench against Club Brugge. The forward netted shortly after coming on but the goal was VAR-ed – his yellow card for taking off his shirt still stood – and he is still waiting for his first senior goal for the Rossoneri.
Last summer, Camarda joined Lecce on loan to gain more senior experience. The deal involves an option to buy, but a buy-back clause gives Milan full control over the striker’s future.
7) Youri Tielemans (Anderlecht)
16 years, 148 days
Around two months after his senior debut for Anderlecht, Tielemans became the youngest Belgian to play in the Champions League in October 2013 when he started against Olympiacos.
The midfielder quickly established himself as a starter, playing four seasons in Belgium before winning Player of the Season in 2016/17 prior to a move to Monaco.
After two years in France, Tielemans made the move to Leicester, initially on loan before a £32million permanent switch. For the Foxes he scored the FA Cup-winning goal in 2021 while being linked with big-money moves to the likes of Arsenal and Manchester United.
To Aston Villa he went, though, where he was the Villans’ Player of the Season last term.
MORE: Champions League prize money table | All 32 finals ranked
6) Alen Halilovic (Dinamo Zagreb)
16 years, 128 days
As a last-minute substitute against PSG in October 2012, Halilovic became the Champions League’s second-youngest player, a month after becoming the youngest debutant ever for Dinamo Zagreb.
The then-wonderkid made his big move to Barcelona in 2014, but Halilovic could not justify the hype. He made only a single senior appearance for Barca before embarking upon a five country, nine-club tour of Europe, only once managing more than 20 league appearances in a season.
Halilovic, now 29, seems to have settled at Fortuna Sittard, where he is currently into his second season. There the attacking midfielder has scored seven goals, the highest total he’s managed since leaving Dinamo Zagreb 11 years ago.
5) Rayan Cherki (Lyon)
16 years, 102 days
Cherki’s Lyon debut came in the Champions League as a substitute in a 2-0 defeat to Zenit in November 2019.
The playmaker established himself for Les Gones, becoming a mainstay for his hometown team for five seasons before joining Manchester City this summer, when he also made his senior France debut.
Cherki cost City £30.5million – a quarter of the price Liverpool paid for Florian Wirtz. Who got the better player?
4) Celestine Babayaro (Anderlecht)
16 years, 86 days
It’s 31 years since the ex-Nigeria defender became the Champions League’s youngest player, around half an hour before he also set a new record for being the youngest player to be sent off in the Champions League when he received two yellow cards against Steaua BuchareÈ™t in a 1–1 draw in November 1994.
After three seasons in the Anderlecht first team, Chelsea paid £2.25million for Babayaro – then still a teenager – in 1997. The defender stuck around at Stamford Bridge for eight seasons, in half of which he played in half or more of their Premier League matches, before being sent to Newcastle by Jose Mourinho in 2005.
Babayaro’s forgettable spell at Newcastle somehow lasted four years. After his release, he was described as a “disgrace” who “didn’t pull his weight” by Toon chairman Freddy Shepherd.
3) Lamine Yamal (Barcelona)
16 years, 68 days
The first sight of Yamal in the Champions League came during a 5–0 win over Royal Antwerp in September 2023 when he became the competition’s youngest starter.
The boy has got a chance. If he can keep his ego in check.
2) Youssoufa Moukoko (Borussia Dortmund)
16 years, 18 days
Moukoko replaced Erling Haaland to make his Dortmund debut a day after his 16th birthday in November 2020, becoming the Bundesliga’s youngest ever player. He took the Champions League record a little over a fortnight later against Zenit after watching twice as an unused substitute.
The striker was labelled “the biggest talent in the world” by Haaland and he became the youngest Germany international since Uwe Seeler prior to being named in the 2022 World Cup squad.
But Moukoko struggled to live up to the billing. Niggling injuries saw the teenager fail to pin down a starting spot and he flopped in a loan spell at Nice made to kickstart his senior career.
Moukoko left Dortmund this summer for FC Copenhagen for just £4.3million.
1) Max Dowman (Arsenal)
15 years, 308 days
Dowman became the first 15-year-old to feature in the Champions League when he featured as a substitute in Arsenal’s 3-0 win at Slavia Prague.
Dowman, though, is behind team-mate Ethan Nwaneri as the youngest to represent Arsenal and the youngest to play in the Premier League. The massive fraud.
