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With the set to kick off this Thursday in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, it's worth recalling the matches that have been etched in history due to the number of goals they produced.
The absolute record belongs to the match between Austria and Switzerland in the quarter-finals of the 1954 World Cup, held on June 26 in Lausanne under temperatures of around 40°C, earning it the nickname "Hitzeschlacht von Lausanne" —the heat battle of Lausanne—.
That match ended 7-5 in favor of Austria, for a total of 12 goals, a record that has stood for over seven decades without being matched.
The match had a frantic sequence: Switzerland went up 3-0 in the first minutes, Austria clawed back to 5-4 by halftime, and sealed the final result in the second half.
Very close is another classic: the victory of Brazil 6-5 over Poland in the round of 16 of the World Cup in France 1938, held on June 5 at the Stade de la Meinau in Strasbourg in front of about 13,000 spectators.
That match ended 4-4 after 90 minutes and was decided in extra time, with Leônidas da Silva standing out by scoring three goals and becoming the first Brazilian to achieve a hat-trick in a World Cup.
For Poland, Ernst Wilimowski scored four goals despite being eliminated, an extraordinary feat that history does not always remember with the attention it deserves.
The barrier of 11 goals was reached in two matches featuring Hungary.
The first was an 8-3 victory over West Germany in the group stage of the 1954 World Cup, held on June 20 in Basel in front of 65,000 spectators, with Sándor Kocsis as the standout player, scoring four goals.
The second was the highest scoring match in World Cup history: the 10-1 against El Salvador in Spain 1982, on June 15 at the Manuel Martínez Valero Stadium in Elche. Notably, László Kiss came on as a substitute and scored a hat-trick in just seven minutes — the fastest in the tournament's history.
Among the matches featuring ten goals, the victory of France 7-3 over Paraguay in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden stands out, during which Just Fontaine set the record of 13 goals in a single World Cup.
Several matches reached the score of nine goals: Argentina 6-3 Mexico in the first World Cup of 1930, Hungary's 9-0 over South Korea, West Germany's 7-2 against Turkey, and the 9-0 of Yugoslavia over Zaire in 1974, with Dušan Bajević as the top scorer with three goals.
As the years have gone by, the tactical evolution of soccer, the increased competitive balance, and the physical conditioning of teams have made these scores true historical rarities.
The 1954 World Cup in Switzerland is still regarded as the tournament with the highest goals-per-match average of all time, which explains why two of the highest-scoring matches in history belong to that edition.
The FIFA World Cup 2026, which kicks off this Thursday and runs until July 19, is the largest edition in history with 48 teams and 104 matches, paving the way for new generations of fans to witness equally unforgettable moments.
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