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

CLASSIC UFWC TITLE MATCH:
Malta 0-8 Netherlands, 19 December 1990
European Championships qualifier, Ta’Qali Stadium, Valletta
Scorers: Van Basten (5), Bergkamp (2), Winter

Malta has repelled many foreign forces during the course of its history, but this visit from UFWC and Euro champs the Netherlands ended in crushing defeat.

Football was introduced to the Mediterranean island by British soldiers in the mid-1800s, and the Maltese set up a football association in 1863 – the same year that the English FA was formed. But Malta didn’t start playing international football until 1957, and didn’t play a UFWC title match until 1971.

The Malta team of 1990 was a relatively vintage one, featuring several of the country’s all-time most-capped players and top goalscorers, including David Carabott and Carmel Busuttil. But wins were scarce for one of the smallest nations in world football, and they had no chance against the fearsome Dutch, led by the attacking trio of Dennis Bergkamp, Marco van Basten and captain Ruud Gullit.

The Oranje had briefly been UFWC champs following their Euro 88 win, but had only just recaptured the title with a 2-0 win over Greece.

Here in Valletta, 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.

Poor Malta had been trounced by eight full goals. The Netherlands held on to the title until March 1992, when they were beaten by Portugal.

Classic Matches Malta, Netherlands

When is a FIFA ‘A’ match not a FIFA ‘A’ match? That is the question. Unfortunately it’s not always a question that’s easy to answer, and that can cause a bit of a headache for us here at the UFWC.

In most cases, UFWC title matches are FIFA ‘A’ accredited matches. According to FIFA, international ‘A’ matches are those that are arranged between two FIFA-affiliated national football associations in which both associations field their first national representative team. That seems clear enough, and, usually, the UFWC counts matches listed on the FIFA.com list of fixtures and results.

However, inconsistencies in historical classification mean it’s not always possible to rely on FIFA’s records. By FIFA’s own admission, its records have been sourced from various third parties, and it cannot vouch for their complete accuracy.

This raises several questions, not least of which is, what has happened to FIFA’s yearbooks recording the ‘A’ matches that each national association was required to register? But the main question facing us at the UFWC is, what do we do when a match’s categorisation is disputed?

For example, take the case of two Scotland matches from 1929: Norway 3-7 Scotland on 26 May 1929; and Netherlands 0-2 Scotland on 4 June 1929. The Scottish FA regards both of these games as ‘A’ matches, and lists them as so on its website. However, their Norwegian and Dutch counterparts don’t agree.

The Norwegian FA consider their game against Scotland in 1929 to have been a ‘test match’. Similarly, the Dutch don’t consider their match to have been official because they were still fielding amateur players at that time, while the Scots were professionals. FIFA has retrospectively removed both games from its records, and from its website.

However, crucially, as the games were regarded as full internationals at the time, they remain in the UFWC record books as full title matches. The fact that one or other of the teams may have been amateurs does not necessarily mean that those teams were not the first representative teams of those nations. Many early UFWC matches involved amateur teams – indeed in the early years of football all teams were amateurs – and almost all of these matches remain in the FIFA record books.

So we can accept that there will be some inconsistency regarding results delving back into football’s formative years, but what happens when disputes occur over more recent matches? Take, for example, two matches from the 1995 Carlsberg Cup Chinese New Year Tournament, played in Hong Kong: Colombia 0-1 South Korea on 31 January 1995; and South Korea 0-1 Yugoslavia on 4 February 1995.

Although at the time these two games were regarded as full internationals, they have subsequently been removed from FIFA’s records because South Korea apparently fielded an under-21 side. However, 10 of the 11 South Korean players fielded by against Colombia played in their country’s next match, against China on 19 February 1995. And that match still stands in the FIFA records. So the under-21 argument doesn’t wash. For UFWC purposes, both of these results stand.

Another major headache for UFWC statisticians is when title-holders play two simultaneous matches in different countries. This curious situation first occurred on 5 March 1892, when UFWC champs England played both Wales and Ireland in separate matches on the same day, with two completely different line-ups. So, England despatched 11 (mostly amateur) players to Wales, and another 11 to Ireland. Both won 2-0, retaining the UFWC title for England, and thankfully alleviating the potential scenario of two different nations having a claim to the title. Both matches stand as A matches, so both stay in the UFWC records.

This situation happened again on 30 September 1945 and on 15 September 1946, both times involving UFWC title holders Sweden. The Swedes played Finland and Denmark, and Finland and Norway respectively. Sweden won all four games, again avoiding potential problems in determining which nation ended up as champions. Again, the matches remain in the UFWC record books.

So we’re not going to retrospectively remove games from the UFWC records due to reclassification. But what about cases where errors are found in the records? Take the case of this match: Wales 2-2 England on 29 March 1904. Only, the match didn’t take place on 29 March 1904. It took place on 29 February, as spotted by UFWC statistical guru Peter Waring. Oops.

On 29 February 1904 Ireland were UFWC champions, so the Wales vs England match was not a title match. The error means this game has been removed from the UFWC record books. As it was a draw, and there was no change of title holder or ranking point award, there is no effect on the UFWC lineage or rankings table.

Will there be further reclassifications and disputes? Probably. (And if you spot any errors in the UFWC records do let us know.) But rather than look back, we prefer to look forward. Thankfully we can be pretty confident about which forthcoming matches will be FIFA ‘A’ matches, and therefore which will be UFWC title matches.

Take, for example, a little match taking place on 11 August between Mexico and Spain. Definitely an ‘A’ match. Definitely a title match. Definitely one to look forward to. what do you reckon?

Features colombia, England, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, south korea, Wales, yugoslavia