If you’re expecting this article to be about rugby, I’ll have to disappoint you. This is a tale of the most lopsided competitive international football match in history, one with a scoreline so extraordinary that it has taken on its own urban legend to the extent that the first result Google returns for the search term ‘31-0’ is a Wikipedia article pertaining to the day in April 2001 that American Samoa made worldwi to FIFA only giving Oceania a play-off berth in qualification for the finals, rather than one automatic passage. As if the Australians needed any more of an advantage, they got one in the form of a customs oversight which restricted all but one of the American Samoa senior squad from travelling; as the vast majority of the squad held passports for Samoa, a sovereign state with its own FIFA affiliation, they were ineligible to feature. Goalkeeper Nicky Salapu had the dubious honour of being permitted to travel. Also, with most of the nation’s under-20 squad in the middle o...