Ranked! The 10 best debuts ever
Who had the best debuts ever? Some players have just started and have their new club’s fans on their feet before th…
Who had the best debuts ever? Some players have just started and have their new club’s fans on their feet before the 90 minutes are up.
For some it is the start of a brilliant career, for others the start of a remarkable new chapter. For some, it’s a peak they can never visit again.
But a fantastic start will stay with them all forever. It encompasses the excitement of unknown potential and instills the anticipation of success to come. The best debuts ever endured.
The best debuts ever: 10. Ronaldo (Real Madrid vs Alaves, 2002)
Ronaldo celebrates his Real Madrid debut with Zinedine Zidane, Steve McManaman and Esteban Cambiasso (Image credit: Getty Images)
Sixty-one seconds. That was all Ronaldo needed to get off the mark in Real Madrid white. If you started listening to Frank Sinatra’s My Way when he came on for Javier Portillo in the 64th minute, the big man didn’t even have a few regrets as Ronaldo smashed the ball past Alaves’ goalkeeper.
He’s not content with that though, though he later gleefully gets a pass from the very Steve McManaman for a second — Macca hilariously asks for the ball back after playing it in — before missing an easy chance at a hat-trick. A miss, he has always claimed, was deliberate so as not to set the bar too high for the rest of the season.
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9. Alan Shearer (Southampton v Arsenal, 1988)
Alan Shearer during his Southampton days in the 1980s (Image credit: Getty Images)
A handy reminder that football wasn’t invented here in 1992, as the Premier League’s record goalscorer had been beating them for four years before it was even launched. As he worked his way through Southampton’s academy, the Saints saw enough talent in rosy-cheeked 17-year-old Alan Shearer to give him a full debut against high-flying Arsenal, themselves unbeaten for some 8 games.
What followed was three goals that all screamed late ’80s British football, and came from a combined distance of around five mud-soaked yards, but also broke the record for the youngest-ever hat-trick in England’s top flight. Not a bad way to introduce yourself.
8. Fabrizio Ravanelli (Middlesbrough v Liverpool, 1996)
Fabrizio Ravanelli is revealed as a Middlesbrough player by Bryan Robson (Image credit: Getty Images)
Middlesbrough in the mid-’90s feels more like a fever dream than actual football history. Returning to the Premier League, Bryan Robson decided the best course of action was to bring some of the most expressive players in world football to a part of the country famous for drowning a chicken cutlet in cheese sauce and making 80% of the buildings of corrugated iron.
However, it worked for exactly one game. Along with samba stars such as Juninho, Emerson and Robbie Mustoe, Italian goalscorer Fabrizio Ravenelli promptly scored a hat-trick against mighty Liverpool. Despite being 4th at one point, the results fell off a cliff and Boro was promptly put back where they came from. Oh well worth a try.
7. Zinedine Zidane (France vs Czech Republic, 1994)
Zinedine Zidane’s debut in France against the Czech Republic in 1994 (Image credit: Getty Images)
If you ever want to talk about the biggest contrast possible between someone’s first and last appearance for a club, Zinedine Zidane’s career in France is probably where that begins and ends.
18 years before he would go through the tunnel at the World Cup final with sadness in his heart and Marco Materazzi’s necklace pressed to his forehead, Zizou came off the bench with his country trailing 2–0 to the Czechs. Instantly looking like someone’s much older brother who decided to tease a game in the playground, he made his way through 3 players before burying an unstoppable 30-yarder with five minutes left. Less than two minutes later, he jumped a good five feet above everyone else in the box to score a header you could hardly replicate with a step ladder.
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6. Sergio Aguero (Manchester City vs Swansea City, 2011)
Sergio Agüero celebrates on his Manchester City debut against Swansea (Image credit: Getty Images)
The biggest compliment you can give to Sergio Agüero’s time at Manchester City is that on the face of it, scoring two goals and providing one assist doesn’t actually sound that impressive. There were entire months of the season where it felt like he did that every game.
But what made this particular catch stand out from the many that followed was that Agüero didn’t get his boots muddy until the 59th minute. In a staggering half-hour cameo, he got on the end of a Micah Richards cross for a tap-in, played a blind head-high backpass to David Silva to score, then just pocketed one of a full 30 years.
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5. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (LA Galaxy v LAFC, 2018)
Zlatan Ibrahimovic celebrates with his LA Galaxy debut (Image credit: Getty Images)
What can be said about Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s US debut — and indeed his entire career — that he himself has not yet said. 3–1 down, at home, in the Los Angels debry (which is apparently a thing), comes the big and MLS is forever changed.
Two minutes later and his presence alone is enough for Galaxy to pull one back, but the equalizer couldn’t possibly have been more Ibrahimovic if the ball was covered in tattoos and started referring to itself in the third person. A volley, 40 yards from goal, that sailed into the net as well as into the history books with the same level of liveliness.
The second arrived in quite a dramatic fashion, with the game going into stoppage time he somehow outwitted two defenders and the goalkeeper to bring in the most dramatic winner. “You wanted Zlatan,” he said at the press conference, “I gave you Zlatan”.
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4. Gianluigi Buffon (Parma v AC Milan, 1995)
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Great debuts aren’t just about scoring goals — unless, you know, that’s your job — and Gianluigi Buffon announced himself on the big stage with an age-old shutout. Barely 17 years old and just 4 years after transforming from an outfield player, he was thrown into the deep end against Carlo Ancelotti’s all-conquering Milan side.
The game ended goalless thanks to Buffon repeatedly frustrating Roberto Baggio, Marco Simone and Ali Dia’s cousin George Weah. He may have made over 1,000 competitive appearances after that and won every accolade worth winning, but he’ll never forget his first.
3. Wayne Rooney (Manchester United v Fenerbahce, 2004)
Wayne Rooney scored on his Manchester United debut against Fenerbahce (Image credit: Getty Images)
It’s a story as old as time. A once-in-a-generation talent bursts onto the scene with this home team, securing a major move to one of the biggest clubs in the world, but the step up is a little too much for them at first. Wayne Rooney, however, isn’t; Wayne Rooney did it in his sleep.
He left David Moyes’ Everton for a princely £27 million, arrived at Old Trafford aged just 18, and promptly put Fenerbache to the sword. Two first-half goals — the second a delightful long ranger — were crowned with a brilliant free-kick before the hour mark. Yes, okay, he looks like he now owns a bankrupt chip shop chain, but that night in 2004, no other player in world football looked quite so exciting.
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2. Erling Haaland (Borussia Dortmund vs Augsburg, 2020)
Erling Haaland celebrates his debut with Borussia Dortmund (Image credit: Getty Images)
Scoring two goals against West Ham in his actual Man City debut (no one counts the Community Shield) was an impressive start for Eeling Haaland. But it was nothing compared to his arrival at Dortmund.
After 55 minutes, Dortmund’s title challenge looked in tatters as they trailed 3–1 at Augsburg. They put Haaland on the field and within 3 minutes he halved the deficit with a nice goal from a small angle. 11 minutes later, and after an equalizer for Jadon Sacho, he raced on with Thorgen Hazard for a tag. Before finally bursting out of defense in 9 minutes to complete the comeback at 5–3.
Or to put it another way, in the first 20 minutes of German football, Eerling Haaland scored a hat-trick with his first three shots and first 10 touches.
1. Alvaro Recoba (Inter Milan vs Brescia, 1997)
Alvaro Recoba on his Inter Milan debut against Brescia (Image credit: Getty Images)
If a time traveler had appeared in the Inter Milan dressing room ahead of this game and told those in attendance that today would be the annals of football debut history, all eyes would immediately be on the £20+ million Brazilian lacing his boots . But Ronaldo’s debut is frankly nothing compared to that of fellow debutant Alvaor Recoba.
Trailing Brescia 1–0, the Uruguayan came off the bench and decided to score his own personal goal of the season’s competition in the half hour left. The first, a rasper directly in the cassonette superiori (top baking) would have been enough, but the winner somehow surpassed it five minutes before time. Fully 30 yards from goal he somehow bends over as well as a free kick into the one part of the goal the goalkeeper couldn’t reach.
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