Take a look at the youngest players to have played at the World Cup.
While it's especially difficult for teenagers to establish themselves to such an extent that they can be called upon to perform on the game's biggest stage, a handful of teenagers have shone at the World Cup.
The 19-year-old Kylian Mbappe took the world by storm at the 2018 World Cup, an 18-year-old Michael Owen took on Argentina's defence all by himself to score one of the competition's most memorable goals, and a 17-year-old Pele trumped both in leading Brazil to the 1958 World Cup.
Only seven players in World Cup history have featured in the Finals prior to their 18th birthday, and we look at the five youngest below.
5 - Pele - 17 years, 235 days
With Bartholomew Ogbeche and Rigobert Song's World Cup debuts coming ever-so-slightly too late, Pele remains the fifth-youngest player to grace the world stage.
Pele was actually omitted from Brazil's first two group games, with the starlet given his debut for the tie with the USSR, scoring his first World Cup goal in the 1-0 win over Wales in the quarter-finals before netting a hat-trick in the semi-finals with France.
In scintillating form, Pele would score two more in the final taking his haul to six for the tournament as Brazil ran out 5-2 winners over hosts Sweden.
4 - Salomon Olembe - 17 years, 185 days old
The 1998 World Cup saw two Cameroonian 17-year-olds given their World Cup debuts, with Salomon Olembe first up in Cameroon's first game of the tournament against Austria.
Making his international debut at Wembley the year before, Olembe came off the bench against Austria, starting Cameroon's final two games of the World Cup, in what would turn out to be his only World Cup appearances.
3 - Femi Opabunmi - 17 years, 101 days old
From playing at the Under-17 World Cup the year before, Femi Opabunmi was one of the beneficiaries of Nigeria's premature World Cup exit in 2002, getting the nod to the big stage in South Korea and Japan.
Drawn in the 'group of death' alongside Sweden, England and Argentina, Nigeria were eliminated after back-to-back losses before meeting England.
Despite attracting attention from some of Europe's biggest clubs at the time, Opabunmi was forced to retire from football four years after his World Cup appearance due to glaucoma.
2 - Samuel Eto'o - 17 years, 99 days old
While Samuel Eto'o hadn't long turned 17 for his World Cup debut, his international debut actually came the day before his 16th birthday.
The Cameroonian would earn six international caps before making his World Cup bow against Italy in Cameroon's second group game, where he came off the bench for the final 24 minutes.
Eto'o played no further part in Cameroon's campaign as they suffered a group stage exit, but he would go on to make seven more World Cup appearances, scoring three goals, as well as winning the Africa Cup of Nations twice in 2000 and 2002.
1 - Norman Whiteside - 17 years, 41 days old
A prodigious teenager, Norman Whiteside holds a number of records from the early days of his playing career. Following in the footsteps of George Best from Northern Ireland, Whiteside was Manchester United's youngest player since Duncan Edwards when making his debut in 1982 as a 16-year-old. He would score in the 1983 League Cup final, becoming the youngest player to do so in the competition's history, and achieved the same feat in the FA Cup final later that year.
Whiteside's exploits weren't limited to club level, taking his talents to the international stage. Despite having played just two senior games at the time, Whiteside was taken to the World Cup in Spain, where he broke Pele's record as the youngest player in the competition's history, a record that still stands more than 40 years later.
