Watch: Young Marseille Fan Seizes His Opportunity and Scores on Ceremonial Kickoff
The French Ligue 1 has a tradition similar to the ceremonial first pitch in baseball: A fan is invited onto the field to perform a ceremonial kickoff, just a simple kick to one of the players on the home team. A kid at Sunday’s game between Marseille and Rennes wasn’t satisfied with just one touch.
Not only did the kid take the ball all the way down to the other end of the field and score, he capped it off with a yellow card-worthy celebration.
This video from the club explains that the kid, Yassin, was there as part of a tribute to his father, one of two men killed in a bus crash that injured another 15 Marseille supporters ten years ago.
Incredibly, this is the second time in less than a year that this exact thing has happened at a Marseille game. Last September, the club invited a man named Kamel Zaroual to take the ceremonial kickoff after he completed a long charity bike ride. Zaroual took off and scored with a right-footed strike from the edge of the box.
Note there, though, that the Toulouse keeper made the mistake of trying to stop Zaroual’s shot and failing miserably. At least Tomas Koubek had the good sense not to test himself against a child on a breakaway.
