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| Archie Thompson scored 13 goals in 1 match. |
On April 11, 2001, Australian soccer history was written in extraordinary fashion. The Australian national team set an unprecedented world record for the largest victory in a senior international football match, defeating American Samoa 31-0 during a qualifier for the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
The Star of the Show: Archie Thompson
The chief architect of this staggering defeat was Australian forward Archie Thompson, who personally holds a record that is unlikely to ever be broken. Thompson scored 13 goals in the match—the highest number of goals scored by a player in a senior international fixture.
Thompson, born in 1978, is renowned as one of Australian football's most entertaining and beloved figures. While he had a brief stint in Europe with PSV Eindhoven, he is best known for his incredible domestic career, primarily with the Melbourne Victory in the A-League Men. During his 11 seasons with the club, he became their all-time leading goalscorer and was instrumental in winning multiple A-League championships. His career with the national team, the Socceroos, saw him earn 54 caps and score 28 goals, including his record-breaking haul.
📜 The Aftermath and FIFA's Response
The massive disparity in the match exposed a significant flaw in the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) World Cup qualifying format. Following the brutal result—and several other lopsided scorelines during the same tournament—FIFA changed the structure of the qualifiers.
The new format now includes additional preliminary rounds and structures that ensure smaller nations face more appropriately matched opponents before advancing to play regional "giants" like Australia (which has since moved to the Asian Football Confederation, the AFC, for its World Cup qualifiers).
Due to these changes, the possibility of a scoreline approaching the 31-0 record is now extremely slim, meaning that Archie Thompson’s 13-goal individual record is almost certainly safe forever.
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