1 Peter Ofori-Quaye, 17 years 195 days

Rosenborg 5-1 Olympiakos, 1 October 1997

Ofori-Quaye’s was a curious career. Born in Accra, he was playing in Greece for Kalamata at the barely believable age of 15 as part of an influx that, briefly, made the region more famous for its quantity of Ghanaians than its olives. A big move to Olympiakos was not long in coming and Ofori-Quaye, physically mature for his age and with a keen eye for goal, was fast-tracked into the first-team squad. He was an unused substitute in the Greeks’ first Champions League tie of the 1997/98 season, against FC Porto, and was on the bench again for the next game in Rosenborg. These were the days when the Norwegians were a group stage staple, and they breezed into a four-goal lead that – with the likes of Roar Strand, Harald Brattbakk and Sigurd Rushfeldt among the scorers – feels vaguely nostalgic in itself. Introduced on the hour with little left to lose, it took just nine minutes for Ofori-Quaye to make good his reputation as game young gunslinger. A very fine finish it was too, sticking out a leg to control a cross from the left, creating a yard of space and swiveling to arrow a accurately into the bottom-left corner. As he ran back towards the centre-circle, he engaged in the customary we-can-do-this-now-lads geeing-up of his colleagues with the authority of a senior pro.

He has gone past that stage now. Ofori-Quaye, now 34, has not been on a club’s books since 2012 and even that, a short spell with Bechem United back in his homeland, was something of a false extension to his playing days. Ofori-Quaye spent six years with Olympiakos and, even if he became something of a Championship Manager sensation after his early heroics, never lived up to his early billing. He was part of a successful squad but seven goals in his first season was as good a tally as he would rack up and, still just 23, he was released in 2003. Returning briefly to Ghana, he came back to Europe in 2005 but, in spells with OFI Crete, Hapoel Kiryat Shmona and AEL Limassol, ended up doing little more than play out time in a career that had shot its bolt far too early.

2 Mateo Kovacic – 17 years, 215 days

Dinamo Zagreb 1-7 Lyon, 7 December 2011

There is no getting away from the fact that Dinamo Zagreb’s 2011-12 Champions League campaign was an utter embarrassment. A respectable start, losing 1-0 to Real Madrid, had been followed by four subsequent defeats that included a 6-2 hiding at the Bernabéu and a 4-0 thumping by Ajax. By the time they hosted Lyon – who needed to win, hope Ajax lost to Real and that a seven-goal turnaround manifested itself in the meantime – their race was long since run and they were obliging enough in helping the French side win theirs. Seven times Ivan Keleva’s net bulged, four of them courtesy of Bafetimbi Gomis – who helped himself to the fastest Champions League hat-trick – and Lyon’s goals all came between the 45th and 75th minutes.

Yet that was all after they had gone a goal down five minutes before the break. Dinamo, who had been reduced to 10 men after 28 minutes, broke their duck for the tournament when Fatos Beqiraj burst clear on the right and forced Hugo Lloris into two superb saves before Kovacic, a regular in the team now after making his debut the previous year, reacted faster than a sluggish defence to torpedo the opener in from a matter of feet.

Lyon’s unthinkable response and a 3-0 defeat for Ajax ensured their progress to the knock-out stage, with suspicions raised in the aftermath that something underhand had occurred. All of that made Kovacic’s feat a footnote but he has been prominent enough since, helping Dinamo win yet another league title that year before joining Internazionale in January 2013. A delightful footballer with a brain beyond his years, a superb passing range and a deft change of pace, he started for Croatia at the World Cup and, still just 20, has much better nights than that cold, much-questioned night at the Maksimir ahead of him.

3= Cesc Fábregas – 17 years, 218 days

Arsenal 5-1 Rosenborg, 7 December 2004

This time it was Rosenborg receiving a battering, and this time the headline goal was administered by a player whose career would stand the test of time. The secret was already out where Fàbregas was concerned: he had become Arsenal’s youngest goalscorer the previous season, in a League Cup match against Wolves, and had scored his first Premier League goal three months before the Norwegians, already eliminated arrived in London. Arsenal were already 2-0 up when, in the 29th minute, Fàbregas took an instinctive Robert Pires pass, flicked it around a defender and hooked into the net with his left foot. It helped put Arsenal into the last 16, although Bayern Munich – naturally – would quickly extinguish their flame. Fàbregas, though, had served notice of the kind of performance he would put in against Patrick Vieira and Juventus a season later. While the way in which his Arsenal career ended is a cause of lingering regret for player and club, he has been at it again for Chelsea this season – scoring in November’s 1-1 draw against Schalke.

3= Bojan Krkic – 17 years, 218 days

Schalke 0-1 Barcelona, 1 April, 2008

Bojan is beginning to show that he can do it on a cold afternoon in Stoke, but a breezy April evening in Germany’s industrial heartland gave an early pointer that this could be a talent for all seasons. The goal, which arrived six months after he had become Barcelona’s youngest-ever scorer, was not much to look at – a jab into an empty net after Thierry Henry, running onto a piece of outside-of-the-boot Andrés Iniesta genius, had seen his first shot blocked and squared the rebound to his young colleague – but it made him the first 1990s-born player to score in the Champions League and gave Frank Rijkaard’s side a vital first-leg lead. They would lose to Manchester United in the semi-finals; Bojan himself went on to spend a couple of years looking as if he could one day give Lionel Messi a run for his money before fading out and spending short, moderate spells at Roma, Milan and Ajax. Scoring against Arsenal at the weekend suggests that, at the least, he would be able to hold his own against opponents of group stage quality now.

5 Martin Klein – 17 years, 241 days

Panathinaikos 2-1 Sparta Prague, 27 February 2002

Spoiler: nobody else on this list has seen their career pan out quite as obscurely as Klein, who flung his blond mop at a late free-kick towards the end of second group stage (remember what a slog that all was?) game in Athens and gave Sparta Prague, 2-0 down already, a few seconds of brief excitement. The defender had come on as a first-half substitute and, this display of bravura seemingly having made enough of an impression, he would play from the start for a 3-0 defeat against Real Madrid two weeks later. Behind him was a 19-year-old Petr Cech, but they soon moved in different directions as Klein failed to impress on rare opportunities in the domestic league and joined FK Teplice, where he had already spent time on loan, at the start of 2004. Six decent years there restored his stock but moves to Konyaspor, in Turkey, and the Hungarian side Ferencvaros seemed ill-chosen and he returned to Teplice last season. So far, so underwhelming, but the 30-year-old can now be found in Kazakhstan with FC Kaisar, from the city of Kyzylorda, who were promoted to the country’s Premier League last year. 2002 seems a long, long time ago.

6 Breel Embolo – 17 years, 263 days

FC Basel 4-0 Ludogorets, 4 November 2014

The night before bonfire night was also a schoolnight for Embolo, who was due to be up and about at 7am the next morning. But the Cameroon-born forward got his hard work done fairly early against the Bulgarians, and announced to the wider public a talent that had already made a huge stir in Switzerland. His goal, in the 34th minute, was borne of a combination of power and poise. Taking a dink from Fabien Frei perfectly on his chest, he outmuscled a defender and, although facing away from goal, adjusted his body to slot a bouncing ball into the corner. He created his team’s third goal too – and has taken such explosive form into his domestic performances since.

7 Aaron Ramsey – 17 years, 301 days

Fenerbahce 2-5 Arsenal, 21 October 2008

Ramsey was an almost painfully shy figure when he first arrived at Arsenal but, after admitting to finding the increased speed of training almost impossible to handle early on, quickly showed that he knew when to make a big noise. Coming on as a substitute 73 minutes in for his fifth appearance since joining from Cardiff, this was intended to be little more than a late runout in a game that Arsène Wenger’s side were leading 4-1, although the Turks quickly scored another. Further danger having been averted, Ramsey appeared 20 yards out in the dying minutes to make completely sure with a venomous finish off a post. Goals would then be infrequent for the Welshman until last season, when his purple patch cranked into gear with a superb brace against, yes, Fenerbahce last August.

8 Karim Benzema – 17 years, 353 days

Lyon 2-1 Rosenborg, 6 December, 2005

This list owes a an unserviceable debt to Rosenborg, who cropped up a third time almost a year to the day after laying out the red carpet for Fàbregas at Highbury. The youngster catered for this time was making only his second professional start and his first appearance in the Champions League, and well he might because Lyon, now halfway through their seven-year period of Ligue 1 dominance, had already qualified from Group F while Rosenborg were virtually certain of third place and a Uefa Cup spot. Alongside another tyro destined for bigger – or at least other – things in the form of Hatem Ben Arfa, Benzema started brightly and came close twice early on before, 33 minutes in, he seized onto a John Carew cutback and swept Lyon into a fairly inconsequential lead. That was equalised in the second half and it was left to Fred, Brazil’s venerable attacking totem a full eight and a half years later, to stir the senses with an injury-time winner.

These days, Benzema is perhaps in the form of his life with Real Madrid and seems finally to have the confidence – in himself and from others – to be labelled among the world’s leading strikers. He has scored at least five Champions League goals in six of the last seven seasons, including the current one. Dead rubbers sometimes provide the ideal opportunity to bring a red-hot talent to life.

9 Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – 18 years, 44 days

Arsenal 2-1 Olympiakos, 29 September 2011

Oxlade-Chamberlain became the youngest Englishman to score in the competition and, only seven weeks after signing from Southampton, wasted little time in doing so. It was an excellent goal, capitalising firstly upon the self-appointed role of playmaker that Alex Song adopted in his final season at Arsenal by latching onto the Cameroonian’s diagonal ball and secondly upon some absentee defending caused by Marouane Chamakh’s decoy run before, having journeyed from right to left into the penalty area, he fizzed a left-footer past a rooted Franco Costanzo. He has progressed to become one of the more dynamic players in a relatively one-paced Arsenal team but it took him another three years to make a similar mark in Europe – putting Arsenal 3-0 up against Anderlecht on 4 November this season before things took a turn for the decidedly unexpected.

10 Mariyan Ognyanov – 18 years, 60 days

Levski Sofia 1-3 Chelsea, 27 September 2006

Levski Sofia’s group stage campaign of 2006-07 took some beating for sheer misery. Chelsea, Barcelona and what was, back then, a very useful Werder Bremen side made for a sextet of fixtures that looked ill-starred from the beginning for the Bulgarian champions and, although they were only handed out one real thrashing – 5-0 by Barcelona – an overall record of played six, lost six, scored one, conceded 17 tells a tale of Dinamo Zagreb-esque proportions.

What it does not tell is the story of their goalscorer. Mariyan Ognyanov’s 89th-minute goal in the national stadium was well taken, drilled clinically past Petr Cech from a high, bouncing ball down the middle, but was very much a postscript to a Didier Drogba hat-trick. The Levski player’s finish, though, hinted at big things to come: he had not long turned 18 but had already played in the first team over the past two seasons, scoring a couple of goals in the league.

It turned out to be a false dawn, although not quite irredeemably so. Ognyanov failed to turn this breakthrough into consistent form but, after being loaned to little Belasitsa Petrich, the midfielder returned to Levski and scored twice more in the Champions League qualifiers against the Andorran side Sant Julià.

He was not to make the grade and in January 2012 signed for Botev Plovdiv, then of the second tier but swiftly enough promoted to the first. A mainstay of the team now, he made his full international debut in August 2013 and currently leads the Bulgarian top flight’s assists charts. This is all respectable enough for the 26-year-old, although time is running out for his fame to extend beyond a precipitous-looking place in this top 10.