Dortmund’s prolific goal-scoring young wizard Jadon Sancho has turned even more heads with his first hat-trick on Sunday in the match against Paderborn in the Bundesliga and a big move is likely to follow in the wake of his stunning performance that invited comparisons with the past feats of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo was already approaching his 23rd birthday when he scored the first-hat-trick of his senior career. Lionel Messi was three and half months shy of turning 20 when he registered his first triple for Barcelona, choosing the grandest stage, a clasico against Real Madrid.
Neymar’s first senior hat-trick was when he was 18 years old though, crucially, he was already taking penalties for his club, Santos, by then.
Jadon Sancho can take heart that although only just 20, his milestone, maiden hat-trick was a combo of one scored with the right foot, one with the left, and then a winning, one-on-one duel with the goalkeeper.
All 3 goals were scored in the second half against Paderborn on Sunday, and if the 6-1 scoreline, and the opposition’s berth at the foot of the Bundesliga’s first division, in any way suggests this was not a big deal, it is needful to remember that there were no goals in the opening 45 minutes as Paderborn was giving it as best as they could against a resilient and equally aggressive Dortmund side.
Sancho was making his first League start for Dortmund since February, injury and the long pause in the calendar having extended his time without a full 90 minutes of action. Sunday coup-de-grace achievement for Dortmund reinforces the fact that the German club is almost always stronger with Sancho on the field.
This fact though, could be a slightly uncomfortable truth for Dortmund to acknowledge because, assuming the next transfer window goes according to the machinations of Premier League clubs like Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool, Sancho is likely to be on the receiving end of a major offer soon to move elsewhere. That eventuality is inevitable some day, if not this summer were it not for the pandemic heavily denting the finances of even top flight clubs.
Sancho’s eventual exodus could perhaps be to his native England, and a Premier League heavyweight, perhaps to one of Spanish football’s two grandees, the Barcelona of Messi, or the Real Madrid where Ronaldo established himself as a man of habitual hat-tricks.
Hat-tricks make headlines but, on a day Sancho described as “bittersweet”, he also caught attention for other reasons.
His first goal, a smooth tap-in, was marked by the player revealing a message on his undershirt, ‘Justice for George Floyd’, in support of Floyd, the black American who died last month in police custody, and whose treatment has provoked widespread protests in the US.