Japan’s 8-0 win over Tajikistan this week was the biggest UFWC title match win for more than 20 years. Mike Havenaar, Shinji Okazaki, and Shinji Kagawa scored two goals each, and Yuichi Komano and Kengo Nakamura also netted in the huge win that saw Japan retain the UFWC title. It wasn’t Japan’s biggest ever win (they beat the Philippines 15-0 in a non-UFWC match in 1967), but it’s a significant scoreline that deserves to be placed in the context of UFWC history.

The last team to score 8 goals in a UFWC title match was Germany in 2000, when they won 8-2 vs Lichtenstein. At half-time the score was level at 2-2, and German coach Erich Ribbeck substituted his entire team. Germany eventually took a 3-2 lead in the 65th minute, and then scored five in the last ten minutes, including two from Ulf Kirsten and two from Carsten Jancker.

The last team to win a UFWC title match 8-0 was the Netherlands, vs Malta in 1990. Led by the attacking trio of Dennis Bergkamp, Marco van Basten and captain Ruud Gullit, the formidable Dutch were unstoppable. Van Basten had a hat-trick within 23 minutes, on his way to a five-goal haul. Aron Winter made it 4-0 in the second half, before Bergkamp got two, and van Basten got two more – the last from the penalty spot.

Delving further into UFWC history, Brazil beat Bolivia 8-1 in Lima at the Copa America in 1953. Julio Botelho, or Julinho, scored 4 in that game. Brazil finished as runners-up in the tournament to Paraguay.

England scored 8 against Austria in 1909 (winning 8-1), and Austria scored 8 against Switzerland in 1931 (also winning 8-1). But a handful of sides have scored more than 8 goals in UFWC title matches.

In 1927, England scored 9 against Belgium, although they failed to keep a clean sheet in the 9-1 win. The Everton legend Dixie Dean scored a hat-trick, George Brown and Arthur Rigby scored braces, and Joe Hulme and Louis Page also scored. England also scored 9 against Wales, in another 9-1 win, way back in 1896. Scotland also scored 9 against Wales, beating them 9-0 in 1878.

In 1945, Sweden beat Norway 10-0 in a euphoric post-war performance. The brilliant Gunnar Nordahl – the highest goalscorer in UFWC history with 29 goals in 19 title matches – scored four in this game. Arne Nyberg and Nils Carlsson scored two each, and Vincent Persson and the great Gunnar Gren also scored.

And Scotland beat Ireland 11-0 in 1901, with four from Celtic’s Sandy ‘The Duke’ McMahon, two from his clubmate John Campbell, four more from Rangers hero Bob Hamilton, and one from David Russell.

But the most number of goals scored by one team in a UFWC title match is 13. England beat Ireland 13-2 in 1899, with Corinthians forward Gilbert Smith scoring 4, James Settle of Bury scoring a hat-trick on his debut, the great Steve Bloomer and Fred Forman scoring two each, and Frank Forman and William Athersmith also scoring. The fact that Ireland keeper goalkeeper James Lewis only had eight full fingers may have contributed to the scoreline, although he did manage to limit the damage by saving a James Crabtree penalty. With 15 goals in all, this remains the highest scoring game in UFWC history.

You can read more about these games, and hundreds of others, in the UFWC book Unofficial Football World Champions, now available from all good bookshops in both English and Japanese. The English edition is published by Superelastic and is available in paperback and on Kindle from Amazon.co.uk. The Japanese language edition is published by Asuka Shinsha and available from Amazon.co.jp.

Unofficial Football World Champions traces the history of the UFWC from the very first international match in 1872 via more than 800 title matches, involving legendary teams and footballing minnows, classic finals and forgotten friendlies, celebrated players and unsung heroes. The book focusses on 100 key matches, uncovering some amazing stories, many of which are ignored in official football histories. You can read more about the book and see reviews here.

UFWC News Austria, brazil, England, Germany, japan, Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden

UFWC Hall of Fame:

Matthias Sindelar, ‘The Mozart of Football’ or ‘The Paper Dancer’, was the playmaker and goalscorer at the heart of the legendary Austrian Wunderteam of the 1930s. Skilful and creative, Sindelar scored 27 goals in 44 games for the national side, including 13 goals in just 12 UFWC games.

Of Czech descent, Sindelar was born in Kozlov, then within the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, in 1903. He played all of his club career at Austria Vienna, from 1924 until his premature death in 1939.

Sindelar made his international debut for Austria in September 1926, ironically against Czechoslovakia. He soon became an integral part of Hugo Meisl’s Wunderteam, making 42 appearances for his country and scoring 27 goals. However, his career and life were cut tragically short.

When Nazi Germany took control of Austria in 1938, Sindelar refused to play for the newly-formed combined Austria/Germany side.

A few months later, in January 1939, he was found dead in his home alongside his girlfriend. Official records said the pair had died from carbon monoxide poisoning, but friends said this was written up to ensure a state funeral, which murder victims were not entitled to.

Despite the pressures of war, 20,000 people turned out for his funeral. Sindelar is still regarded as Austria’s greatest ever footballer, and should perhaps be regarded as the greatest footballer ever to grace the UFWC.

Matthias Sindelar, UFWC career 1931-32, 12 games, 13 goals.

More UFWC Hall of Fame

Hall of Fame Austria

CLASSIC UFWC TITLE MATCH:

Austria 1-1 Greece
(Match abandoned but score stands)
5 November 1967
European Championships Qualifier, Praterstadion, Vienna
Scorers: Siber (Austria); Sideris (Greece)

On paper this match should not have offered much to get excited about. The last Group 3 qualifying match for the 1968 European Championships was effectively meaningless, as the USSR had already secured the only qualifying spot at the top of the table. To the uninformed observer, Austria and Greece were playing for nothing but pride, and certainly the match was very ordinary for the first 84 minutes. But, unbeknown to those involved, there was something important at stake – the not-inconsequential matter of the UFWC title.

Helmut Siber of German club Kickers Offenbach struck after 32 minutes to give title-holders Austria a first half lead. Free-scoring Olympiakos striker Giorgios Sideris pulled Greece level in the 73rd minute, but the match only really came to life amid late controversy. In the 85th minute on the 5th of November, fireworks duly erupted, ensuring the match would go down in history as one of the strangest ever played.

With just five minutes left to play, referee Gyula Gere of Hungary saw fit to send off Greece’s star player, Takis Loukanidis. For the record, Panathinaikos’s footballing all-rounder Loukanidis is now considered one of Greece’s best ever players and was regarded at the time as something approaching a living Greek god. Inevitably, the Greek supporters in the crowd were enraged, and mindless mayhem immediately erupted.

Scores of spectators, apparently of both Greek and Austrian persuasion, charged onto the pitch and began to engage in a mass brawl. Players from both sides were caught up and became involved in furious fistfights, while ref Gere was unceremoniously bashed over the head with a bottle.

A full-scale riot was underway, and 200 Austrian policemen, with horses, dogs, and big sticks, were sent onto the pitch to put an end to it. Order was eventually restored but there was no sensible way that play could continue, so the match was abandoned.

In the aftermath of the riot the Austrian authorities were severely reprimanded, and UEFA threatened to make Austria play all fixtures away from home if such an incident ever happened again. But what made the case particularly unusual was UEFA’s decision not to order a replay. UEFA declared that the 1-1 score should stand, even though the match had not been completed. The fact that the result had no effect on European Championships qualification probably had some bearing on the decision. As, no doubt, did the possibility of another riot.

This was only the second UFWC title match in history to be abandoned (the other being the Ibrox disaster of 1902), but the score in this one stands for UFWC purposes, as it does for official FIFA records.

Not that the 1-1 draw changed the title-holders or ranking points, with Austria retaining the title for another seven months before losing 3-1 to the Soviet Union.

This is an edited extract from the Unofficial Football World Champions book, which tells the story of the UFWC via more than 100 classic title matches. Get more details here.

Classic Matches Austria, Greece