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Incredible goal gluts
Robert Lewandowski’s sensational season continued in style on Tuesday when the Pole notched the fastest quadruple in Champions League history during a 6-0 win away to Red Star Belgrade.
The striker required just 14 minutes to fire in four goals, taking his tally for the season up to 30 strikes in 24 appearances. Yet he still has much to learn when it comes to matching the goalscoring exploits of the following players in a single match…
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (vs Nottingham Forest, 1999)
Solskjaer's strike rate from the bench for Manchester United at Nottingham Forest was fairly impressive, to say the least. The Norwegian goal-getter only had 18 minutes on the pitch after being brought on as a late substitute at the City Ground in 1999, but that was enough for him to put four past poor Dave Beasant as United won 8-1.
Fergie's side went on to win the Treble and Forest suffered relegation. In fairness, the East Midlanders' team that finished the game that day included the likes of Hugo Porfirio and Jesper Mattsson (nope, us neither).
Archie Thompson
Thompson scored 28 goals in 54 Australia caps. Almost half of those came in the same 2001 game. He scored so many, 13, that the bloke operating the scoreboard lost count, initially crediting him with 14 goals.
Only 3,000 people witnessed international history as American Samoa were hammered 31-0. Reports suggested they were "no match for Australia", in one of the understatements of the century (indeed, eligibility problems hampered the minnows even further). Thompson had hit eight by half-time before slacking off after the break with just five more.
"You have to look at the teams we are playing and start asking questions. We don't need to play these games," groaned the world-record-breaking striker.
Denis Law (vs Luton, 1961)
It wasn't Law's lucky day on January 28, 1961. The Manchester City striker scored six times in an FA Cup tie at Luton Town, only for the game to be called off with 20 minutes to go because of a waterlogged pitch. Law's double hat-trick would have been an FA Cup record, and George Best repeated the trick for Manchester United at Northampton nine years later. That time, the six goals stood.
Robert Lewandowski (vs Real Madrid, Georgia, Wolfsburg)
Lewandowski gets three entries for three different teams, having plundered for fun with Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich and Poland.
Take your pick: first there were the four goals he scored for Borussia Dortmund in a Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid in 2013.
Amazingly, he then scored a four-minute hat-trick twice in just three months: Lewa struck three times in three minutes and 59 seconds against Georgia for Poland in June, then shaved 40 seconds off that personal best as his first three of five goals against Wolfsburg – as a half-time substitute – came within three minutes and 19 seconds.
Dieter Muller (vs Werder Bremen, 1977)
Lewandowski's goal spree fell one short of the German top-flight record set by Muller in 1977. He scored a double hat-trick for Cologne against Werder Bremen, netting in the 12th, 23rd, 32nd, 52nd, 73rd and 85th minutes.
We'll have to take his word for it, though: there's no video footage of the feat because the cameramen were on strike. That fourth goal, a scissor kick from 110 yards out, was particularly memorable. As for the fifth, a backheel assist from the octopus that jumped down from the stands? Stunning...
Joe Payne (vs Bristol Rovers, 1936)
Things were getting out of hand in the Football League during the 1935/36 campaign. First Ted Drake scored all seven for Arsenal in a 7-1 win at Aston Villa.
Then Robert 'Bunny' Bell became the only person to score nine in the Football League as Tranmere Rovers thrashed Oldham Athletic 13-4 in what was described as ankle-deep mud. He could’ve had ten, but missed a penalty.
Payne made no such mistake when he smashed double figures past Bristol Rovers as Luton Town won 12-0 – and he wasn't even a striker. The utility player had played only four games that season, all of them at right half, and had never played up front. Surprisingly picked as a stand-in striker for his first appearance in seven months, he scored 10 times.
Oleg Salenko (vs Cameroon, 1994)
There weren't too many notable achievements in Salenko's career, which produced steady but not unspectacular goal returns for clubs like Zenit, Dynamo Kiev, Valencia and Rangers. But then came that day at the 1994 World Cup when, almost out of the blue, he scored five goals for Russia against Cameroon.
That bizarre afternoon, coupled with a penalty against Sweden, meant Salenko shared the Golden Boot with Hristo Stoichkov – despite Russia going out in the group stage. Salenko had never scored for his country before or after that tournament. Underwhelmed by his spell at Rangers, which he described as "very boring", he later became manager of the Ukrainian beach football team.
Panagiotis Pontikos (vs Ayios Athanasios, 2007)
Australia's Thompson holds the world record for a full international match, but he can only dream of being as prolific as Olympos Xylofagou frontman Pontikos. In a Cypriot third-tier clash in 2007, Xylofagou trounced SEK Ayios Athanasios 24-3, with Pontikos contributing 16. He only had four at half-time but bagged a quadruple hat-trick after the interval.
Jose Luis Chilavert (vs Ferro Carril Oeste, 1999)
Three goals in one game may not be startling, but for the fact that they were all scored by a goalkeeper. The Paraguayan eccentric nicknamed El Buldog (no prizes) scored 67 goals during his career thanks to his deadly set-piece abilities.
In 1999, while appearing for Argentine club Velez Sarsfield against Ferro Carril Oeste, he netted three spot-kicks in a 6-1 victory. The fiery Chilavert’s Wikipedia page says that "he has thrown punches at the likes of Faustino Asprillia and Diego Maradona", as if trying to get through a list of footballing heroes. "I’ve had a lot of fights on the pitch, but what did people expect? With the face I’ve got I have to play the bad guy," he shrugged.
Magnus Arvidsson (vs Landskrona, 1995)
If you’re after a speedy hat-trick, ignore Lewandowski – Arvidsson is your man. In a 1995 Swedish second division match, he struck three times in just 89 seconds for Hassleholm against Landskrona. "There was hardly time to kick off between the goals," he said afterwards.
Bata (vs Barcelona, 1931)
Back in 1931, Spanish champions Athletic Bilbao subjected Barcelona to a 12-1 hammering that remains the heaviest defeat in the Catalan club’s history.
The man who put them to the sword that day was Agustin Sauto Arana, or Bata, who found the net seven times. In Barca’s defence (sort of), they went down to 10 men through injury after 18 minutes and then had a second player injured with the score at 9-1.
John Petrie (vs Bon Accord, 1885)
Arbroath’s reasonably comfortable 36-0 win over Bon Accord in the 1885 Scottish Cup remains the biggest victory in British football history.
No man enjoyed the afternoon more than 18-year-old forward Petrie, who contributed 13 of those goals. Bon Accord, to be fair, weren’t actually a football team – they were an optimistic group of cricketers who had accidentally received an invitation to take part in the competition. Maybe turn it down next time, lads.
Miroslav Klose (vs Bologna, 2013)
Like a fine wine, the German striker seemed to only get better with age after moving to Lazio towards the end of his playing days. No match better highlighted his ability to delay the passage of time than when he put five past sorry Bologna during a 6-0 win for the Roman club in 2013.
Lionel Messi (vs Bayer Leverkusen, 2012)
It’s always only a matter of time before Messi turns up on lists about scoring exploits. The Argentine wizard deserves a mention here for the five-goal haul he notched against Leverkusen in the second leg of Barcelona’s Champions League last 16 tie back in March 2012.
It was an achievement that made him the player with the most goals in a single Champions League game. Until…
Luiz Adriano (vs BATE Borisov, 2014)
Even if Messi wasn’t confident he would keep his record forever, he was probably surprised by who equalled it.
Luiz Adriano smashed five past helpless BATE to equal the Barcelona legend’s record, and scored a total of nine in the competition that season – more than anyone apart from Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo and – you guessed it – Messi.
Malcolm MacDonald (vs Cyprus, 1975)
England’s Malcolm MacDonald is the joint-record holder for the most goals scored in a European Championship match, along with Hungary’s Tibor Nyilasi and Dutch duo John Bosman and Marco van Basten, after putting five past Cyprus in April 1975.
He recalled later how it could’ve gone even better: "In the third minute, [Alan] Hudson floated a free-kick in, I got on the end of it and I was on my way. When I got my third just after half-time he said: 'That's your first hat-trick, now get the second.' I scored five, had one disallowed for offside and hit the post before the final whistle."
Dada Maravilha (vs Santo Amaro, 1976)
Dada broke Pele’s record eight goal-haul in 1976 when he smashed 10 past Santo Amaro for Sport Recife.
The man known as ‘Iron Chest’ and ‘Dada the Hummingbird’ may not have come close to matching Pele’s exploits during his career, but he did at least get one over the Brazilian great here.
Jimmy McGrory (vs Dunfermline, 1928)
Former Celtic forward McGrory set a record that stands to this day when he left the Dunfermline defence in tatters with an eight-goal showing back in 1928.
The Bhoys ran out 9-0 winners that day, but McGrory’s feat remains a Celtic, Scottish and British record for the most goals in a top-flight league match by one player.
Afonso Alves (vs Heracles Almelo, 2007)
Yes, really. The same one. That Middlesbrough guy. It may not have worked out for the Brazilian at the Riverside, but his form in the Netherlands was, after all, the reason the club agreed to fork out a club-record £12.5 million for his services in the first place.
Andy Cole (vs Ipswich Town, 1995)
Manchester United’s 9-0 trouncing of Ipswich was the biggest win of the Premier League era, while Cole’s five-goal haul was another first.
The England striker didn’t keep the record to himself, as Alan Shearer equalled the feat against Sheffield Wednesday four years later before Tottenham’s Jermain Defoe, United’s Dimitar Berbatov and Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero followed suit against Wigan, Blackburn and Newcastle in subsequent years.
Omar Sivori (vs Inter Milan, 1961)
When Juventus’ meeting with Inter was abandoned in 1961 for overcrowding, and the authorities performed a U-turn on their decision to award the Milanese side victory by ordering a replay, Inter protested by sending a youth team out.
By the time the game was played Juve were already champions, but Sivori’s ruthless six-goal haul in a 9-1 win for the Bianconeri showed there was no slacking off on their part. It saw him match Silvio Piola’s record, but nobody was really offering him much credit for the feat.
Ted Drake (vs Aston Villa, 1935)
Drake’s seven-goal haul for Arsenal against Villa in December 1935 remains an English top-flight record.
What’s more, it provided some relief to Gunners boss George Allison, who was struggling with illness at the time. “I've been very lonely, but Drake's feat was a great tonic," he said, before confirming he would be back on the touchline for the next game.
Silvio Piola (vs Fiorentina, 1933)
Piola is one of the all-time Italian greats and his double hat-trick against Fiorentina at the age of 20 was a sign of things to come.
His performance caught the attention of Azzurri boss Vittorio Pozzo, although it took a bit longer for the striker to nail down a place in the national squad. He eventually did, and scored twice in the 1938 World Cup final to secure Italy’s second consecutive triumph.
