CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Who is PSG’s Warren Zaïre-Emery, the Champions League child prodigy?
The precocious 16-year-old talent started in the semi-final first leg after initially being thrown into a UCL match against Bayern Munich.
French football just can’t stop churning out new talents. The latest, and possibly one of the most promising players of the last decade, is Warren Zaïre-Emery, a 16-year-old who plays in midfield for Paris Saint-Germain. On Wednesday, he took to the field against Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final in Germany. And this after he became the youngest player in history to be starter in a UCL knockout phase a year earlier.
Zaïre-Emery: PSG’s latest young star
The player’s coach at the time of the big decision, Christophe Galtier, had already given him pitch time in the 2022/23 season of Ligue 1, and decided to start him in one of the most important games of the season. Zaïre-Emery, a PSG youth squad player was already the youngest footballer in history to make his PSG debut, the earliest to start with the Parisians and the youngest to score a goal with the French team.
The presence of Zaïre-Emery in the PSG eleven against Bayern in the round of 16 last season was eye-catching, but not a particular surprise to those who had followed his rise. His potential remains unquestionable – the Youth League and the youth Champions League seemed too small for him – and he has settled in the first team alongside the likes of Kylian Mbappé, although he’ll almost certainly have to do without him in Paris next term. He was also the leader of the France under-17 team that ended up as the last European champion, in a generation that was made up of players born in 2005 while the Parisian squad player was born in 2006.