Eighteen years old. Just 12 games and 332 minutes played in senior football. No league starts and no action since December.
But still Ben Doak finds himself in Scotland’s provisional squad for Euro 2024. Must mean he is some player, right?
The teenager’s hype train accelerated at the speed of his lightning pace after a 2022 move to Liverpool was followed by first-team involvement under Jurgen Klopp.
The balloon started to deflate, along it seemed with hopes of a potential Euro 2024 call-up, when a season-ending injury ruled the Celtic academy product out of the final five months of the 2023-2024 campaign.
But a return to first-team training has been enough to convince Steve Clarke to include Doak in his 28-man set-up, only emphasising how the Scotland head coach feels about the youngster.
Here, we chart the rapid rise of an 18-year-old dubbed the “Scottish Rooney”.
‘I’ve never seen anything like him’
‘Doak’s blistering pace hits you between the eyes’
Doak, who moved to Liverpool for a compensation fee of just £600,000, was Celtic’s brightest academy prospect.
At 14 he was playing for the Under-18s. At 16 he was drafted into the B team.
Then came an invite to train with the senior side, where he was apparently nicknamed ‘Wazza’ due to his similarities with a young Wayne Rooney.
Speaking to BBC Scotland in 2022, former Celtic full-back Jackie McNamara – Doak’s agent – referred to the teenager as “a Scottish Rooney” and said he had “never seen anything like Ben”.
That impression was made in some way on then manager Ange Postecoglou, who quickly handed him a debut against Dundee United, making him the club’s second youngest player at 16 years and two months.
