Aston Villa and Blackburn
must have the hardest fans to please in British football.
At various points during last night's 6-4 goals bonanza at Villa
Park, both sets of fans booed their own team.
What exactly more do they want?
It was somehow apt that as the Australian
Open gets into full swing, a football match should end in a tennis score.
The match enters a select club of 10-goal
thrillers, and to mark the occasion ED has selected 10 more matches when
tactical discipline was replaced by the law of the playground.
Ten more games with 10 or more goals
Real Madrid
7-3 Eintracht Frankfurt - 1960 European Cup final
Real Madrid
completed their unprecedented haul of five consecutive European crowns after
winning at Hampden
Park, where a young Alex Ferguson's
obsession with the trophy began. Frankfurt
forward Richard Kress gave the German champions the lead, but that goal only
served to awaken the beast. Alfredo di Stefano scored twice to kick-start a
dazzling display of attacking artistry from Los Merengues, with Ferenc Puskas
firing into the roof of the net just before half-time. Puskas scored a penalty before
heading his fourth. Four goals in as many minutes followed, with Di Stefano
sealing his own hat-trick. The match strengthened Real's
legacy as entertainers par excellence, and delivered a football lesson to its
British audience.
Charlton Athletic 7-6 Huddersfield Town - 1957 Division Two
Anyone who was present at
The Valley just before Christmas in 1957 was lucky enough to witness a 13-goal
thriller. Having been reduced to 10 men early in the game, hosts Charlton found
themselves 5-1 down with 27 minutes left on the clock and were staring down
the barrel of a heavy defeat. But a simply incredible turnaround saw the
Addicks find the back of the net six times before the final whistle, while Huddersfield could only reply with one of their own. It
ended 7-6 and Huddersfield remain the only
team in Football League history to score six goals and end up the losing side.
Austria 7-5 Switzerland -
1954 World Cup quarter-final
Switzerland may be
responsible for one of the most boring World Cup matches of all-time - their goalless
draw with Ukraine in 2006, which they lost on penalties - but they were also
part of the highest-scoring one when the 1954 hosts met neighbours Austria in
Lausanne. The Swiss were 3-0 up after 20
minutes due to a three-minute blitz, but Austria responded with brute force,
Theodor Wagner and Robert Koerner scoring two each and Ernst Ocwirk adding
another. Robert Ballaman pulled one back, but Wagner completed his hat-trick to
restore Austria's two-goal lead after the break, with Sepp Huegi
following suit just before the hour mark. The Lausanne crowd then had to wait a full 18
minutes before Erich Probst scored the 12th and final goal of a ludicrous match.
Monaco 8-3 Deportivo La Coruna - 2003
Champions League
"Unthinkable" was
how coach Didier Deschamps described this mauling in Monte Carlo; the aggregate 11 goals setting a
Champions League record. Even more amazingly, Monaco's
destroyer-in-chief was Dado Prso, celebrating his 29th birthday. The Croatian
netted a first-half hat-trick, and scored a fourth on 49 minutes. Jerome
Rothen, Ludovic Giuly, Jaroslav Plasil and Edouard Cisse scored Monaco's other goals, while Diego Tristan (two) and Lionel
Scaloni were on target for Depor, who took off goalkeeper Jose Molina at
half-time when trailing 5-2. Both sides ended up qualifying from Group C; Depor
then pulled off one of the greatest comebacks ever to knock out Milan in the quarter-finals.
Brazil 6-5 Poland - 1938 World Cup first round
A rain-sodden Strasbourg saw 11 goals
in 120 thrilling minutes. Brazil
striker Leonidas got the scoring underway on 18 minutes and his side took a 3-1
lead into half-time. A downpour during the break played into the Poles' hands and they began a stirring comeback to draw
level at 3-3. Peracio restored the South Americans'
lead in the 71st minute, only for Ernest Wilimowski to force extra-time with
his third of the day late on. But Leonidas grabbed another two goals (93, 104)
to effectively settle the tie and not even a fourth for Wilimowski as time ran
out could alter the outcome of a truly sensational match.
QPR 5-5 Newcastle - 1984 First Division
Proof positive that Newcastle were capable of
kamikaze football long before Kevin Keegan became manager. Sitting in the Toon
dug-out was none other than Jack Charlton, who went on to make the Republic of Ireland the most dourly effective side
in international football. Not today. Newcastle
blazed into a 4-0 half-time lead through Malcolm McDonald and a 24-minute
hat-trick from Chris Waddle. With a half-time rollicking from Alan Mullery
still ringing in their ears, QPR pulled goals back through Gary Bannister and
Simon Stainrod, before John Gregory made it 4-3. Kenny Wharton appeared to make
it safe for Newcastle
but Steve Wicks headed QPR back in contention before Gary Micklewhite scrambled
a stoppage-time equaliser.
Bayer Uerdingen 7-3 Dynamo Dresden (7-5 agg) - 1986 European Cup Winners Cup
Not many people miss the
Cup Winners Cup but this tie was a humdinger between teams from the old West
and East Germany.
Uerdingen lost the away leg 2-0, and trailed 3-1 (5-1 on aggregate) with 32
minutes remaining. Dresden reserve keeper Jens Ramme suffered the shock of his
life as Wolfgang Funkel converted a dodgy penalty, Larus Gudmundsson levelled
on the night, the unfortunately named Ralf Minge deflected into his own net and
Dietmar Klinger netted but Bayer were still behind on away goals. Then Funkel
capped the comeback by scoring a sixth from the penalty spot after 81 minutes.
Wolfgang Schäfer scored a late seventh and ended up on the shoulders of the home
fans who invaded the pitch.
Portugal 5-5 Cameroon - 2003 U17 World Cup
FIFA age group competitions
normally slip under the radar but not this one from Tampere
in Finland.
Portugal
only needed a point to qualify for the quarter-finals and raced into a 5-0
half-time lead, including a Manuel Curto hat-trick after Vieira de Freitas arrowed
a shot from inside his own half over the keeper's
head and into the net. Then the Lion Cubs launched an astonishing comeback with
three goals in six minutes before Joel Nguemo made it 4-5 with two minutes
left. In stoppage time Etoundi Mbia volleyed the equaliser Cameroon rattled
the bar with a stoppage time effort that could have sent them through.
Borussia Moenchengladbach 12-0 Borussia Dortmund - 1978
Bundesliga
The final day of
the 1977-78 season started with Moenchengladbach level on points with Cologne but 10 goals worse
off on goal difference than their local rivals. They certainly gave it a go, as
Jupp Heynckes scored a hat-trick inside 32 minutes and Moenchengladbach led 6-0
at half-time, while Cologne
were just 1-0 up on already relegated St Pauli. Heynckes added a fourth while
Carsten Nielsen and Kalle del Haye completed their braces to make it 9-0 with 25 minutes left while Cologne were only 2-0 up on the ultimate
transistor radio afternoon. Both contenders scored three in the final quarter as
Cologne ran out
5-0 winners to claim the title. Dortmund
coach Otto Rehhagel being fired while his goalkeeper Peter Endrulat never
played in the top-flight again.
Portsmouth 7-4 Reading
- 2007 Premier League
You will
probably not need to be told that this is the highest-scoring game in Premier
League history, or, as Richard Keys would have it, the highest-scoring game in
history. Benjani bagged two in the opening 37 minutes before Stephen Hunt
started the Royals' comeback and Dave
Kitson levelled after David James spotted a Nintendo on the touchline and came
racing off his line. Quickfire strikes from Hermann Hreidarsson, Benjani, Nico
Kranjcar and Shane Long and Ivar Ingimarsson (an obn goal)to head through his own net.
Sulley Muntari made it 7-3 with an injury time penalty before Nicky Shorey -
who earlier missed a penalty that cost this match mythical 12-goal status -
scored to complete a farcical second-half.
AS Adema 149-0
SO l'Emyrne -Madagascan league, 2002
The final day of
the 2002 season produced by far the biggest win in history. Remarkably, none of
the Adema scored as Emyrne - the defending national champions, no less - netted
own-goals at a rate that Jamie Carragher could only dream of. Farcical scenes ensued following a dispute with
the referee that resulted in Emyrne coach Ratsimandresy Ratsarazaka ordering his players to
put through their own net while the bemused Adema players looked on. The result
did not please fans of Arbroath, whose 36-0 over Bon Accord was the previous
record, and the Madagascan authorities were even less impressed, banning Ratsarazaka
and four players.
- - -
QUOTE OF THE
DAY: Carlos Tevez explains his barney with Gary Neville at Eastlands: "Gary Neville was wrong disrespectful to me. It is
wrong for one professional to criticise another in the way he did when he did
not know the full facts. I was not trying to be offensive to him when I
celebrated, I was just trying to make a point to him." That point being,
as Roy Keane might put it, stick it up your b***ocks.
FOREIGN VIEW: The head of the Chinese FA has
been taken in for questioning by police in a crackdown on matchfixing in the
country's troubled professional game.
Nan Yong, who took over as head of the CFA
one year ago, was taken away by a police investigative group who were probing a
series of matchfixing scandals
CFA vice president Yang Yimin and Zhang
Jianqiang, who was formerly in charge of referee arrangements, were also taken
in by police, the newspaper added. Zhang now oversees women's football at the CFA.
The paper did not say whether they had been
formally arrested but said they were still in police custody.
Jia Xiuquan, former head coach of Chinese
Super League club Shanghai Shenhua, was also questioned by police.
The CFA has cancelled at least two meetings
which were to be attended by Nan and Yang,
while arranging other officials to take charge of their jobs.
Nobody at the CFA was immediately available
to comment.
At least 21 officials, players and club
managers, including Xu Hongtao, the president of Chengdu Blades, owned by Sheffield
United, have been arrested or detained in the past two months on suspicion of
matchfixing or gambling, which is illegal in China.
COMING UP: The final round of matches in
African Cup of Nations Group D is LIVE at 16:00 UK
time, with Cameroon v Tunisia and Gabon
v Zambia.
Follow our live text commentary, or watch the
games on British Eurosport, British Eurosport 2 and the Eurosport Player.