The San Marino star who sent England to an all-time low tells FFT 30 years later that the magnitude of his achievement never really sunk in at the time
(Image credit: Alamy)
The San Marino star who inflicted England's greatest embarrassment 30 years ago to the day has told FourFourTwo that he didn't realise quite what he'd done.
England needed to beat the minnows by seven goals to qualify for the World Cup in 1994 and hope that other results went their way. Just 8.3 seconds into the match, however, the Three Lions were behind, thanks to Davide Gualtieri netting the the fastest international goal of the 20th Century.
Now, Gualtieri has spoken to FourFourTwo about the moment, which came on his first start for San Marino.
England ended up winning 7-1 (Image credit: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
"When the match kicked off, though, it all went so quickly," he says now. "Nicola Bacciocchi to Bonini, to Pierangelo Manzaroli, back to Bacciocchi, who immediately tried to play it on to me as I darted in from the right flank. His pass was way too powerful, but Stuart Pearce tried to tap the ball towards Seaman and it fell short. I was there. I accepted his gift, slipping past Pearce and nudging the ball beyond Seaman with the tip of my foot to put us 1-0 up.
"At first, I didn’t really appreciate what had happened. I was pretty nippy then – a winger who could go one-to-one – but I never would have expected anything like that, against England, on my first start for San Marino. How can you imagine running 50 metres and then scoring like that?
"OK, Usain Bolt needed 9.58 seconds to dash twice as far, but it’s not quite the same thing It wasn’t until long after the final whistle, when I left our changing room and several reporters were waiting outside for me, that I found out I’d broken a record for the fastest goal in a World Cup qualifier, scoring inside 8.3 seconds. I thought it must have been at least a minute or two! At the time, the game resumed quickly and I was just concentrating on the match."
The record has since been broken, unfortunately – after Christian Benteke scored after just 8.1 seconds for Belgium against Gibraltar in 2017. Comparing his moment to Benteke's goal, Gualtieri says he was sad that his stat was beaten but has suggested that his goal meant more.
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"With all due respect to him and Gibraltar, scoring against England isn’t the same as doing it against them," Gualtieri says. "That’s the way it is, though: records are always there to be broken and one day his record will fall too, especially now that you don’t have to kick off by touching the ball forward. You can save up to half a second."
Mark White has been at on FourFourTwo since joining in January 2020, first as a staff writer before becoming content editor in 2023. An encyclopedia of football shirts and boots knowledge – both past and present – Mark has also represented FFT at both FA Cup and League Cup finals (though didn't receive a winners' medal on either occasion) and has written pieces for the mag ranging on subjects from Bobby Robson's season at Barcelona to Robinho's career. He has written cover features for the mag on Mikel Arteta and Martin Odegaard, and is assisted by his cat, Rosie, who has interned for the brand since lockdown.
