A member of the academy ranks at La Liga champions Barcelona has late this week secured for himself a piece of club history.
This comes owing to developments in the World Cup clash between Egypt and Australia.
The Pharaohs and Socceroos are of course fresh off a nail-biting Round-of-32 clash in Dallas late on Friday evening.
When all was said and done, it was the former who kept their campaign at the tournament alive, courtesy of a penalty shootout triumph.
En route to as much, Barcelona starlet Hamza Abdelkarim – whose loan to the club was recently made permanent – was introduced off the bench by Egypt with 105 minutes on the clock.
And in the process, history was made.
As revealed by Spanish statistician Mister Chip on ‘X’:
‘For the first time in World Cup history, a player who has never made a club appearance for Barcelona beyond youth level is playing in a knockout stage match.’
Conor Laird – GSFN
