Eduardo Schilling Vives (25 March 1883 – 1 February 1971) was a German footballer who played as a forward for FC Barcelona in the club's very first match in 1899, at the age of 16.
[1][2] Schilling was not one of the twelve founders of FC Barcelona on 29 November 1899, but just a few days later, on 8 December, he featured as a forward in their first-ever match, a friendly against the city's English colony known as Team Anglès at the Velódromo de la Bonanova.
[1] Aged 16 years, 9 months and 13 days old, Schilling was the youngest Barça player in that match, and the second-youngest of both teams only behind Stanley Charles Harris;[1] however, due to a mistake that has persisted through time, his father is often wrongly credited with being the one who played for Barça that day, which is highly unlikely since he was already 47 at the time.
[6] Schilling studied industrial engineering, but abandoned that career before 1900 to join his father's company, for whom he made several international trips to England, Germany,[1][2] and France, and while on the latter, he briefly played for United Sports Club, starting in the final of the Coupe Dewar in 1902, which ended in a 1–0 loss to Standard AC.
[7] Following his father's death, Schilling launched some modern, large-format advertisements in order to raise sales and offer a broader vision of what the Schilling House made available to the public, the first of which was released in the Illustrated Hunting Magazine in January 1927 and the last in January 1928.