On 11 April 2001, the Australian and American Samoan national association football teams played each other in an Oceanian qualifying match for the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Australia set a world record for the largest victory in an international football match, winning the game 31–0.

The outcome of the match led to debates about the format of qualification tournaments, with the Australian manager Frank Farina and Thompson feeling that preliminary rounds should be introduced to avoid such unbalanced matches, views shared by the international footballing body FIFA.

It eventually led to the introduction of a preliminary round in the Oceanian zone qualification for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

By the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification tournament, this had grown to a competition with ten teams entering.

The winner of Oceania would advance to the intercontinental play-off round against the fifth best team in the South American zone for a place in the World Cup.

American Samoa was one of the weakest teams in the world, having lost all of their official international matches since they had joined FIFA in 1998.

Strikers John Aloisi and Damian Mori who combined for 10 goals in the 22–0 win over Tonga were also omitted for this match.

American Samoa was also unable to call their under-20 players because most of them were involved in high school exams at the time.

The previous record was held by Iran in a 19–0 win over Guam also in the 2002 World Cup qualification.

[15] Australia's manager Frank Farina criticised the qualification format and questioned the need for these kinds of matches.

FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper agreed with both comments and suggested a change in the qualification format, with the smaller teams entering a preliminary round.

[17][18] From the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifiers onwards, Australia participated in the Asian zone qualification phase.

[19] The American Samoan team did not feel down-hearted and even embraced and sang to the audience as the match finished.

"[5] American Samoa closed their qualification campaign with a 5–0 loss to Tonga, finishing bottom of the group with a −57 goal difference in four matches without scoring.