Hong Kong, September 4

Record scorelines left fans cringing and coaches looking over their shoulders today after an avalanche of goals cruelly exposed the gulf in class at Asia’s World Cup qualifying.

No fewer than 76 goals were rattled in across the continent in Thursday’s 15 games — an average of 5.067 per match, one of the highest on record. Malaysian supporters were aghast after their team crashed 10-0 against UAE, their worst ever defeat and eclipsing their previous low of 8-2 against New Zealand in 1967. The New Straits Times newspaper pulled no punches, saying the defeat “can be considered the national team’s biggest humiliation in history”.

“Hey guys, if you are keen on learning how to count from one to 10 in Arabic, go and watch the highlights from the game of UAE vs Malaysia,” wrote Amir Azmi on Twitter. Malaysia at least fared better than tiny Bhutan, who shipped 15 unanswered goals against Qatar — an average of about one every six minutes. The result was Qatar’s biggest ever victories by a distance, almost twice the 8-0 victories they recorded over Afghanistan and Lebanon in the 1980s.

But Bhutan and Malaysia were not the only teams with red faces as Laos lost 8-0 to South Korea, Kuwait pummelled Myanmar 9-0 and Saudi Arabia beat East Timor 7-0. Iran smashed six without reply against Guam, Iraq beat Taiwan 5-1 and Australia thumped Bangladesh 5-0, with Japan’s 3-0 win over Cambodia looking tepid by comparison.