But occasionally, the most thrilling matches are total thrashings, in which teams strive to shatter records and degrade their rivals to reach double figures. Thankfully for us, the 21st century has seen many of those.
These are the biggest major league top-flight triumphs since the year 2000.
10. RAEC Mons 0-9 Club Brugge (08/05/04)
Club Brugge finished the 2003–04 season with a 16-game winning run and a scorching 45 goals, nine of which came against RAEC Mons. They only gave up one more goal before halftime, but that’s when things went a bit crazy. The home team was behind 1-0 when a player was sent off after twenty-four minutes.
Brugge scored two late goals to tie the largest victory in Pro League history, making it 3-0 in the 52nd and 7-0 in the 65th.
9. Heerenveen 9-0 Heracles (07/10/07)
From 2007–2008, the focus of Heerenveen was on goals. In their 34 games that season, they scored at least 88 goals—Eredivisie champions PSV only managed 65—and their greatest triumph came against struggling Heracles.
Middlesbrough was persuaded to spend a lot of money on Brazilian striker Afonso Alves since he scored seven goals in the match, including some outstanding ones. When he scored 13 goals in two seasons, it’s easy to see why Boro were so dissatisfied.
Even though Heerenveen defeated Vitesse 7-0 later that season, it’s still not even near to making this list.
8. Troyes 0-9 PSG (13/03/16)
No one was really shocked when Paris Saint-Germain defeated bottom-place Troyes in March 2016 because they were by far the greatest team in France by the time the 2015–16 season came.
Zlatan Ibrahimović and Edinson Cavani, who together scored six of PSG’s nine goals that evening, were the true stars of Paris prior to the Kylian Mbappé and Neymar era.
They reserved the best until after the half, but it was only 3-0 at the interval, with Ibrahimović goalless and Cavani scoring once.
7. PSG 9-0 Guingamp (19/01/19)
Three years later, PSG was back at it, and similar to their victory over Troyes, the Ligue 1 winners had a rather slow start.
PSG led 3-0 at halftime thanks to a double from Mbappé and Neymar, but they really took off after the break. Neymar scored two goals, Mbappé and Cavani finished with three, while substitute Thomas Meunier even scored one goal.
Ángel Di María participated in both games but was unable to score in either. Amazing.
6. Southampton 0-9 Leicester (25/10/19)
On paper, Leicester’s match against Southampton at St Mary’s appeared to be a low-key affair. Being the overwhelming favourites, the Foxes most likely anticipated winning by a margin of three or four. Not too wild.
Southampton was mercilessly dismantled, and Leicester was answered with what may have been the most subdued team display in Premier League history. After Ryan Bertrand was sent off after 12 minutes, Ralph Hasenhüttl’s team appeared to be playing football for the first time.
With hat-tricks from Jamie Vardy and Ayoze Pérez, Ben Chilwell, Youri Tielemans, and James Maddison rounding out the trio, Leicester easily made history.
5. Manchester United 9-0 Southampton (2/2/21)
Southampton gave up nine goals once more, this time away at Manchester United, a little over a year later, on Groundhog Day, no less.
Less than two minutes into his maiden Premier League appearance, Alexandre Jankewitz was sent off, giving the Saints the worst start possible. Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Marcus Rashford, a Jan Bednarek own goal, and Edinson Cavani made it 4-0 before halftime, forcing Ralph Hasenhuttl to watch with a terrible feeling of déjà vu.
After the interval, Daniel James, Scott McTominay, Bruno Fernandes, and Anthony Martial (2) carried on the celebration, matching the Premier League’s largest victory to date.
4. Sochi 10-1 Rostov (19/06/20)
By far the most ridiculous item on this list.
When Sochi, who were only established in 2018, faced fourth-place Rostov in June 2020, they were tenth in the league but they won by a resounding 10-1.
Why? Rostov had to use its academy team, whose oldest player was only 19 years old since they were missing their entire first team and reserve squad after players from both squads tested positive for COVID-19.
Despite giving up 10 goals, goalie Denis Popov made a league record with 15 saves throughout the match, including a penalty save!
3. PSV Eindhoven 10-0 Feyenoord (24/10/10)
An early red card helped PSV defeat Feyenoord 10-0 in October 2010, as was the case with a number of the games on this list. Feyenoord was down to ten men in the 34th minute, behind 1-0 at the time, but they were able to limit the home team to just one more goal before halftime.
The second half was a bit ridiculous. It was 7-0 by the 63rd minute, and PSV set an Eredivisie record at that time by making three more goals in the final 27 minutes.
Even though the Feyenoord team had junior versions of Bruno Martins Indi, Leroy Fer, Stefan de Vrij, and Georginio Wijnaldum, it wasn’t enough to keep them in the game.
2. Benfica 10-0 Nacional (10/02/19)
Benfica won the 2018/19 Liga NOS championship because of their offensive strategy. Ten of their 103 goals in just 34 games came against Nacional in February 2019, which was 29 more than any other team.
Remarkably, neither player scored more than the two goals that Jonas and Haris Seferović combined to score during the match. The Liga NOS record was broken as Álex Grimaldo, João Félix, Pizzi, Ferro, Rúben Dias, and Rafa Silva all took a piece of the action.
1. VVV-Venlo 0-13 Ajax (24/10/20)
13-0 and you heard it right.
Breaking club records, Erik ten Hag’s Ajax raced to a resounding 13-0 victory over VVV-Venlo in October 2020. Lassina Traoré, a 19-year-old striker, became the first Ajax player to score five goals since the legendary Marco van Basten in 1985, and the win was the largest in the club’s history.
The second half was the most entertaining, with eight goals in 26 minutes after Christian Kum’s red card unlocked the floodgates. To remove this one from the top rank, something exceptional will be required.
