Bundesliga
Dortmund wonderkid Moukoko hits opening day hat-trick
Borussia Dortmund’s 15-year-old starlet Youssoufa Moukoko captained the club’s U19 side to a 5-0 victory on the opening day of the season, hitting a hat-trick in the process.
With Dortmund 1-0 to the good after 55 minutes, Moukoko hit a treble in the space of just 15 second-half minutes to put the game beyond opponents Preußen Münster.
Moukoko starts where he left off last season, when he set a Bundesliga U19 record for goals in a single season with his 34 strikes.
He has made a habit of starting campaigns with a bang and - as superb as Sunday’s hat-trick was - last year Moukoko hit six (yes, SIX) in a 9-2 opening day win over Wuppertaler SV.
It’s the 20th time Moukoko has hit three or more goals in a single game for Dortmund’s youth teams and takes his tally to a mind-boggling 127 goals in just 78 combined appearances for the BVB U17s - who he represented as a 12 and then 13-year-old - and U19s, whom he debuted for at 14 last year.
Thanks to a rule change by the DFL in April, Moukoko will be eligible to represent the Dortmund first-team when he turns 16 in November and he has already been training with the seniors ahead of his anticipated early graduation.
He has also been handed the number 18 shirt by coach Lucien Favre for the new campaign and, considering his rocket-like trajectory through Dortmund’s academy sides, it looks a matter of time before Moukoko makes his first-team bow alongside the likes of fellow teenagers Jude Bellingham and Gio Reyna.