Albania scored the fastest goal in the history of the European Championship

Albania’s Nedim Bajrami broke the record for the fastest goal in European Championship history after scoring in the 23rd second against Italy in the group stage.

The Azzurri, the reigning champions heading into Euro 2024, were looking forward to Saturday evening’s game at the Westfalenstadion in Dortmund.

But they faced a tough fight against Albania, competing in only their second major tournament, and took a shockingly quick lead from the start.

The goal came from Federico Dimarco throwing the ball to the left back. He tried to find defender Alessandro Bastoni, who was caught by surprise by Bajrami, and took one touch to set himself up before unleashing a ferocious strike past Gianluigi Donnarumma at close range.

Most of the 80,000 crowd at the Westfalenstadion were Albanian fans and the stadium rocked with joy as their country scored just their second goal of the Euros, a record-breaking one.

Unfortunately for Albania, their joy was short-lived as Italy equalized just ten minutes later. Bastoni atoned for his earlier mistake with a fine header from Lorenzo Pellegrini to pull his team level.

Italy then took the lead through Nicolo Barella soon after and Albania’s career turned into an uphill battle following such a good start.

After Sunday’s game, Albania will return to action on Wednesday when they face Croatia in Hamburg, while Italy will play a day later against fellow rivals Spain in Gelsenkirchen.

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