Austria’s Christoph Baumgartner scored six seconds after kick-off in a 2-0 friendly win against Slovakia on Saturday, making it the fastest goal ever scored in international football.
The 24-year-old sprinted from the center circle, leaping over three challenges to fire a low shot from outside the box into the bottom corner.
The RB Leipzig midfielder was mauled by his team-mates as the Austrians in the away section celebrated at Bratislava’s Teherne Poel Stadium as the Slovakian home fans looked on in disbelief.
“I’ve done this variation of sprinting from the kickoff at your peril before. Somehow the sequence of steps worked and I was able to hit the ground running,” Baumgartner said.
Austria reaches the goal in 6 seconds! 🤯🇦🇹
Christoph Baumgartner single-handedly fought against the entire Slovak team, avoided several challenges and scored 🔥 pic.twitter.com/m7G4bKISU1
— Viaplay Sports UK (@ViaplaySportsUK) March 23, 2024
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Austria reaches the goal in 6 seconds! 🤯🇦🇹
Christoph Baumgartner single-handedly fought against the entire Slovak team, avoided several challenges and scored 🔥 pic.twitter.com/m7G4bKISU1
— Viaplay Sports UK (@ViaplaySportsUK) March 23, 2024
The goal was earlier than Germany’s Lukas Podolski scored nine seconds into the game against Ecuador in 2013, when he pinched the ball from a defender. Then on Saturday, Florian Wirths broke that feat by scoring seven seconds into a 2-0 win over France in Lyon.
Substitute Andreas Weimann scored a goal after eight minutes, sealing Austria’s victory over Slovakia.
Austria continues its preparations for Euro 2024 with friendlies against Turkey, Serbia and Switzerland. In the group stage in Germany they will face France, the Netherlands and either Poland or Wales.
