Pavic becomes youngest Bayern player in UCL

Bayern Munich defender Filip Pavic became the club’s youngest-ever Champions League player and the third-youngest in the competition’s history when he came off the bench against Atalanta on Wednesday.

Aged 16 years and 58 days, Pavic came on for right-back Josip Stanisic in the 72nd minute with Bayern leading 4-0 on the night after having won the first leg 6-1.

UEFA said Pavic was the first player born in 2010 to feature in a Champions League game and the third-youngest in history. Arsenal’s Max Dowman was 15 when he made his debut against Slavia Prague in November, and Youssoufa Moukoko was 16 years and 18 days old when he came off the bench for Borussia Dortmund against Zenit St Petersburg in 2020. Pavic pushes Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal down to fourth on the all-time list. Bayern’s previous youngest Champions League player was Paul Wanner, who was 16 years and 9 months old in a game against Viktoria Plzen in 2022. Pavic wasn’t the only Bayern youngster on the field. The 18-year-old Lennart Karl scored his fourth Champions League goal of the season and there was a debut for 18-year-old Deniz Ofli off the bench for defensive midfielder Aleksandar Pavlovic. Ofli forced a turnover to start the play that ended with Karl scoring Bayern’s third goal.

Bayern won Wednesday’s game 4-1 and the tie 10-2 on aggregate to move on to a quarterfinal meeting with Real Madrid.