GiveMeSport
·1 December 2021
GiveMeSport
·1 December 2021
England Women thrashed Latvia 20-0 at the Keepmoat Stadium to record their biggest ever competitive victory.
The Lionesses remain top of their World Cup qualifying group with six wins from six games, having now scored 53 goals and conceded none.
But where does this latest win rank in terms of the all-time biggest margins of victory?
We’ve scoured the archives and put together a list of the top 10 largest wins from across men’s and women’s international football:
Fiji have never qualified for the FIFA World Cup but did come close in 2010.
On their way to reaching the final round of qualification, the team thrashed Tuvalu 16-0 –– a team they’ve beaten five times with an aggregate score of 47-1.
Tuvalu is a country in the Polynesian subregion of Oceania and has a population of just 11,000.
The German national team is one of the most successful in women’s football history. They are two-time World Champions, eight-time European Champions and were Olympic winners in 2016.
Their largest margin of victory came against Kazakhstan in a European Championship qualifying match in 2011, where they scored a whopping 17 goals.
Renowned striker Alexandra Popp scored four of her 53 Germany goals in the match.
Iran missed out on a place at the 2002 World Cup following defeat to the Republic of Ireland in the playoffs.
However, they thrashed Guam 19-0 in the Asian qualifiers as Iranian football icon Ali Daei scored a hat-trick.
Daei was the top scorer ever in men’s international football with 109 goals up until this year when he was surpassed by Cristiano Ronaldo.
While it was the Lionesses who made headlines this week, Belgium Women hammered Armenia a matter of weeks ago, also in a World Cup qualifier.
Captain Tessa Wullaert, who spent two seasons at Manchester City, scored five goals, while Amber Tysiak and Tine De Caigny netted hat-tricks of their own.
Belgium are second in Group F after six games and are three points behind Norway in top spot.
England’s win over Latvia surpassed their previous biggest win –– a 13-0 victory against Hungary back in 2005.
Overall there were 10 different goalscorers as Lauren Hemp scored four, while Beth Mead and Alessia Russo bagged hat-tricks.
Ellen White also scored three to become England Women’s all-time leading goalscorer with 48 –– surpassing Kelly Smith’s record of 46.
England’s win against Latvia was no doubt emphatic, but it was not the biggest margin of victory in a Women’s World Cup qualifier.
That honour goes to Canada, who beat Puerto Rico 21-0 in the 1998 CONCACAF Women’s Championship.
Canada beat Mexico 1-0 in the final of the tournament to secure the sole automatic place for the 1999 Women’s World Cup.
Australia were unstoppable during the qualifying phase for the 2002 World Cup. They broke the world record for the biggest margin of victory in a men’s qualifier twice in the space of just two days.
The first time came against Tonga, where the Socceroos blasted 22 unanswered goals past Tonga. John Aloisi scored six, while Kevin Muscat and Damian Mori notched four apiece.
Tahiti hosted the 1971 South Pacific Games and gave fans a lot to cheer for when they put 30 goals past the Cook Islands.
They did not manage to go on and win the tournament, however, losing to New Hebrides 2-1 in the semi-final.
Just two days after thrashing Tonga, Australia set another record for the largest victory in an international men’s football match as they won 31-0 against American Samoa.
Archie Thompson scored 13, breaking the record for most goals by a single player in a match.
The outcome of the game led to debates about the format of qualification tournaments, with suggestions that measures should be introduced to avoid unbalanced matches.
Admittedly, this was an Under-23s match and not a full international but the story of the Federated States of Micronesia is a fascinating one.
The Under-23s team was not founded until 2014, yet they were soon invited to compete in the 2015 Pacific Games.
Remarkably, the side travelled to Papua New Guinea without a kit and having only had one training camp as a side.
Their performance was the worst in recorded international history as they lost all three games and conceded 114 goals in the process.
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