Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford – who has been making headlines off the pitch thanks to his his terrific child food poverty petition – became the quickest player to net a hat-trick from the bench in Champions League history on Wednesday evening.
The Old Trafford striker came on in the 63rd minute with the scoreline at 1-0 against RB Leipzig, after Mason Greenwood’s first half strike had given the hosts the lead, and netted a hat-trick to seal all three points for the hosts.
Rashford bagged his first goal exactly 11 minutes later after being introduced on minute 63. Four minutes on and the 22-year-old had the ball in the back of the net again.
The United man could have had his hat-trick even quicker when United won a penalty in the 87th minute but Rashford generously let team-mate Anthony Martial take it. It was the Frenchman’s first goal of the season.
But Rashford still got his hat-trick within 27 minutes with Martial repaying the favour to set him up in the dying minutes of the game, this being a new record from the bench in the Champions League, overtaking Kylian Mbappe’s previous record with 38 minutes, Walter Pandiani before him with 44 and Joseba Llorente now becoming the fourth fastest man to net a hat-trick from the bench in 45 minutes.
“I think the manager wanted me to up the tempo,” Rashford said.
“That for us means going forward. There was definitely spaces there. We got Bruno and Paul on the ball. We looked dangerous throughout and that we could score every time we went forward.
“It was a real team performance. The ones who started did well and the substitutes did well too. We can’t ask for much more than that in terms of the attitude and the intent to go and kill the game off. It worked in our favour.”
Credit: Football Tribe Malaysia
