Christoph Baumgartner scored the fastest goal in Austrian international history on Saturday. The Leipzig international scored after just six seconds in the test match against Slovakia
Christoph Baumgartner wrote his name into the ÖFB history books on Saturday. The 24-year-old attacker from RB Leipzig scored after just six seconds in the test match against Slovakia, making him the fastest goal in Austrian international history. With his goal, Baumgartner replaced Stefan Maierhofer, who scored after 49 seconds in the 3:1 win against the Faroe Islands in Graz in the World Cup qualifiers in September 2009.
According to ORF, Baumgartner even set a new world record. Never before has a faster goal been scored in an official international match. The previous record was held by Belgium’s Christian Benteke, who scored after 8.1 seconds in a qualifier for the 2018 World Cup against Gibraltar.
“It somehow worked out from the sequence of steps that I got into the run. And then I thought to myself, the finish after a few seconds isn’t bad either,” Baumgartner smiled in the ORF interview after the game. The goal was by no means a product of chance: “We’ve often done this variant before, where we simply sprint forward at full risk from the kick-off. It was often the case that we played into the half-space and tried to continue from there.”
Team boss Ralf Rangnick was also naturally pleased with Baumgartner’s “extraordinary” lightning goal: “This goal alone was worth the entrance fee for everyone who was here in the stadium. “
Wirtz scrapes past Baumgartner’s record
Petar Ratkov recently set a new record in the Austrian Bundesliga: The Salzburg striker scored one second earlier than Baumgartner in an away match against BW Linz on February 17.
The DFB record, however, is eight seconds – set just a few hours after Baumgartner’s goal. In the German national team’s test match against France, Florian Wirtz broke Lukas Podolski’s previous record of nine seconds
