Australia beat American Samoa 31-0 in 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification

- Australia defeated American Samoa 31-0 in FIFA World Cup qualification on this day April 11 in 2001

- Archie Thompson was superb for his nation that day scoring 13 goals

- Australia's win against Samoa remains the biggest victory in the history of international football

Thursday, April 11, makes it exactly 18 years that Australia recorded the biggest win in international football when they defeated American Samoa 31-0.

The encounter was in the qualification for the 2002 FIFA World Cup which was held in Korea and Japan.

Outcome of the match led to debates about the format of qualification tournaments with the then Australian manager Frank Farina and Thompson feeling that preliminary rounds should be introduced to avoid such unbalanced matches.

Australian football legend Archie Thompson scored 13 goals in this match, while ZDrilic netted eight goals in massive win which remains in the history book of FIFA.

Interestingly, Australia didn’t actually score their first goal until the 10th minute through Boutsianis who went on to score two more goals.

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The win led to the introduction of a preliminary round in the Oceanian zone and helped Australia secure a move to the Asian Football Confederation in 2006.

Earlier, Legit.ng had reported how Peru were sent out of the 2018 FIFA World Cup on Tuesday, June 26, despite winning their last Group C game beating Australia 2-0.

Before this encounter, Peru had lost their two previous games against France and Denmark, but they finally got a win as farewell gift to Russia 2018 World Cup.

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Source: Legit.ng