Ruthless England’s Euros 8-0 looks less of a freak result than past thrashings

Bobby Charlton was performing his national service in Shrewsbury when Manchester United played their first home European tie. He got a lift up to Maine Road (Old Trafford’s first set of floodlights was still being installed) with a Sgt-Maj White and watched enthralled as Matt Busby’s young side beat Anderlecht 10-0 to complete a 12-0 aggregate victory. In the mess the next day, Charlton found it almost impossible to convince people that United had been brilliant: 10-0, they insisted, was a measure less of United’s excellence than of how weak the Belgian champions must be.

That’s the problem with emphatic victories: they can almost devalue themselves – particularly when they come in circumstances of relative unfamiliarity. Nobody doubted Germany’s 7-1 victory over the hosts in the semi-finals of the 2014 men’s World Cup was a stunning result because, however infected Brazil were by the hysteria of the occasion, however laughably they defended, they were still Brazil.

When England beat Norway 8-0 at Euro 2022 on Monday, what did it mean? Women’s football remains, to the wider public, unfamiliar enough to be greeted with similar scepticism to that provoked by United’s win over Anderlecht. But Norway, like Anderlecht, clearly are not minnows, even if defeat to Austria on Friday suggests this is a relatively weak side by their standards. This wasn’t Thailand being beaten 13-0 by the USA at the 2019 World Cup, a scoreline and a game to make anybody feel uncomfortable about the disparity in quality. Nor was it England’s far more predictable 5-0 win over Northern Ireland. Norway are ranked 11th in the world, three places behind England. They’ve won a World Cup, two European Championships and Olympic gold.

At the same time,