The Paddy Power guide to the best ever football thrashings

Thailand’s women will have nightmares about the USA game for years to come, but it’s by no means the worst rout in football history.

We all love an underdog, but we also all love seeing an absolute s**t load of goals. While the dream may have been for Thailand to pull off a fairytale win over the mighty USA last night, we had to resort to Plan B pretty early on once it became clear the Americans were much, much, much better at football.

As soon as a game gets to 5-0, any self-respecting neutral starts to support the rampaging winning side, morbidly hoping for the biggest score possible.

Historic Win at the #FIFAWWC pic.twitter.com/j4001ZBLlH

— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) June 11, 2019

Usually, the winning team takes their foot off the pedal and it ends as a run of the mill 6-0, but not the USA who in typical American style kept on smashing the goals in to win 13-0, even celebrating the ninth and 12th goals with touchline runs and knee slides.

While the Thai side were on the end of a record-breaking defeat at a World Cup, believe it or not, there have been worse hidings in the past.

Australia 31-0 American Samoa

Just like the Americans, the Aussies aren’t known for letting up when they’ve clearly won as any England cricket fan will tell you and they proved a point in April 2001.

American Samoa had never won a game and knew they were in for a long day from the off, but the relish with which the Aussies put them to the sword couldn’t have been predicted.

Chief bully Archie Thompson netted 13 goals, the coveted quadruple hat-trick plus one, while the American Samoa side reverted to damage limitation followed by praying for a natural disaster.

However, after 86 minutes, American Samoa had their sole chance of the game when Pati Feagiai had a shooting chance but couldn’t make it count. Granted, it was already 29-0, but you have to wonder if that could’ve turned the tide.

Such was the scale of the beating that the scorers lost count and initially believed it had been 32-0 reducing it later to 31-0 and Thompson’s tally of 14 to a meagre 13.

Thankfully, American Samoa stuck at it and recorded their first ever win over Tonga after 30 defeats in 2011, as told by the documentary Next Goal Wins.

Manchester United 9-0 Ipswich Town

A mere 9-0 doesn’t sound too bad when you look at some of the other games here, but for it to happen in the Premier League made it much worse.

It is reported that United were fired up to give the Tractor Boys a kicking after Ipswich had shocked them 3-2 at Portman Road earlier in the season and celebrated too strenuously.

Andy Cole scored a record five goals in a Premier League game against Canadian goalkeeper Craig Forrest who suffered the indignity of letting in seven against United when playing for West Ham years later.

To rub it in still further, Forrest bumped into Cole while on holiday in Barbados. It is rumoured that he introduced Cole to his wife by saying ‘this is the man who made my life a misery.’

We can only imagine Forrest didn’t invite Cole to have a kick around on the beach.

AS Adema 149-0 SO l’Emyrne

Any devoted fan of Madagascan football will know all about this one from 2002.

If ever there’s proof that possession football doesn’t work, it’s this one. AS Adema managed to rack up 149 goals without having to kick a ball.

SO l’Emyrne were protesting against the referee and so decided to put the ball in their own net 149 times while their opponents watched in bemusement, probably celebrating less and less with each passing goal, unless they had their own Sergio Ramos trying to claim each and every one.

AS Adema won the title that year and their goal difference certainly must have looked pretty decent.

Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord

Back in 1885, football scores were often higher than today, but even then, this was headline news and it would remain a high bar for routs for decades to come.

Bon Accord looked out of their depth from the moment they arrived – without any kit – and things just got worse from there. The crazy thing is that the scoreline could have been considerably worse but for some dodgy refereeing.

Arbroath saw seven goals chalked off dubiously with the referee later admitting that he simply couldn’t keep up with the rate that the ball was going in the net.

It is rumoured that the Arbroath goalkeeper was so untroubled that he spent the entire game sheltering under a spectator’s umbrella.

Spare a thought for Dundee Harp who on the same day beat Aberdeen Rovers 35-0, only to see their achievement made to look pedestrian.