Ansu Fati could not believe he had scored. Barcelona's 16-year-old forward had only been on the pitch for five minutes when he rose between Osasuna defenders Nacho Vidal and Aridane Hernandez to power home a superb header and level the match at 1-1.
In doing so, he became Barca's youngster ever goalscorer in La Liga at 16 years and 304 days, beating a record held by Bojan Krkic and which had previously belonged to Lionel Messi. He is also the third-youngest to net in the competition's history.
His name was shown on the big screens at El Sadar, but there was no image of his face, only a blank space where the picture of his head should have been. Even La Liga have been caught by surprise with the arrival of this new sensation. And Osasuna were too.
"Bloody hell, it has gone in," he said as he was congratulated by his team-mates at El Sadar. "I was surprised," he told Barca TV after the game. And when the interviewer informed him he was the youngster league scorer in the club's history, he was even more surprised. "I didn't know," he said. "It's an honour."
On television, his full name flashed up on the screen after the goal. Anssumane Fati, viewers saw, but the teenager likes to be known as Ansu. Remember the name.
Ansu Fati was born in Guinea-Bissau on October 31st, 2002. Two nights earlier, Barca beat Club Brugge 1-0 in the Champions League with a goal from Juan Roman Riquelme.
Ronaldinho would not arrive at the Catalan club until the following season and young Ansu has been compared to the brilliant Brazilian due to his similar dribbling style, his ability to run with the ball, beat players and score goals.
Fati did not meet his father until the age of six, having moved to the south of Spain to start a new life for the family while his partner was pregnant. "I knew he liked football, like any other African kid," Bori Fati told COPE last week. "But I didn't know he was so good!"
Ansu and his mother were reunited with Bori in Andalusia in early 2009 and the young boy asked his father to take him to play football. In Guinea-Bissau, he had played with improvised balls made of rolled-up socks, but with a real ball at his feet, he was soon impressing Spain's biggest clubs.
He joined Sevilla's youth team in 2010 and within weeks, both Real Madrid and Barcelona wanted to sign him. Los Blancos offered more money, but the family opted for Barca because of the residence at La Masia.
The youngster started out as a striker in the Alevin A side and formed a deadly partnership with Takefusa Kubo, although the pair's progress was halteddue to the FIFA ban for irregularities in the signing of young players.
Kubo ended up leaving and later moved to Real Madrid, but Fati stayed. He was not one of the players involved in the controversy, but Barca decided not to select him for a while in order to avoid any possible problems.
In the Juvenil B team, former Barca midfielder Jose Mari Bakero used him on the left, believing he could take advantage of his dribbling and link-up play in that position. He has never looked back.
Now, Fati is the jewel of the Juvenil A side and has leapt up to the first team at the Catalan club, without ever having turned out for Barca B.
And with Messi, Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele all out because of injury, he was called up by Ernesto Valverde and made his debut for Barca as a substitute in last weekend's 5-2 win at home to Real Betis.
Valverde, usually cautious with young players, said: "He has a lot of self-confidence, he moves into space, he goes one v one. I think he is the youngest played I have debuted. He can give us a good performance."
"I will never forget this day for the rest of my life," Fati wrote on Instagram afterwards. "It's a dream come true for any boy from La Masia: debut at Camp Nou... sharing the dressing room with the best players in the world."
His parents, naturally, were thrilled. "When he told us he had been called up by Valverde, I started crying and my wife did too," his father told Cadena SER. "When he went onto the pitch, we were on a cloud."
And he added: "Now I can die [happy]... my son has made his debut for Barca."
Messi, who watched that match from the stands, posted a picture on Instagram afterwards which showed him in a warm embrace with Fati, evoking memories of how Ronaldinho had hugged him after his first Barca goal against Albacete in 2005.
"The present and the future," the club's official account replied underneath the photo of their 32-year-old captain and his 16-year-old team-mate and possible heir. Now the youngster has his first goal too and this is just the beginning for Ansu Fati at Barcelona.
