Austria’s Christoph Baumgartner scored six seconds after kick-off in Saturday’s 2-0 friendly win over Slovakia, the fastest recorded goal in international football.
The 24-year-old sprinted from the centre circle and skipped past three challenges before firing a low shot from outside the box into the bottom corner.
As Slovakia’s home fans looked on in disbelief, Austrians in the away section at the Tehelne pole stadium in Bratislava celebrated while the RB Leipzig midfielder was mobbed by his teammates.
“We’ve done this variation before, sprinting away at full risk from the kick-off. Somehow the sequence of steps worked out so that I got the run,” Baumgartner said.
Austria score in 6 SECONDS! 🤯🇦🇹
— Viaplay Sports UK (@ViaplaySportsUK) March 23, 2024
Christoph Baumgartner takes on the entire Slovakian team by himself, evading several challenges and scores 🔥 pic.twitter.com/m7G4bKISU1
The goal came earlier than Lukas Podolski’s for Germany against Ecuador in 2013 when the forward pinched the ball from a defender and scored nine seconds into the match. Later on Saturday Florian Wirtz beat that feat, scoring seven seconds into his side’s 2-0 win against France in Lyon.
The substitute Andreas Weimann sealed Austria’s victory against Slovakia with a late strike eight minutes from time.
Austria continue to prepare for Euro 2024 with friendly games against Turkey, Serbia and Switzerland. They will face France, the Netherlands and either Poland or Wales in the group stage in Germany.