World Cup countdown: The quickest hat-trick in history | OneFootball

In the 76th minute, László Kiss cemented his name in the history books after scoring the fastest World Cup hat-trick.

Location: Nuevo Estádio in Elche, Spain. The year: 1982.

Hungary and El Salvador met in the sweltering heat to progress from group three – a match that will go down in history by smashing two World Cup records in 90 minutes: the fastest hat trick (458 seconds) and the biggest win, 10-1.

The Salvadorans started the game with an offensive formation in hope of earning victory against the team that (on paper) was seen as the most approachable of the group, alongside Argentina and Belgium.

However, in the 4th minute, everything begins to collapse when Tibor Nyilasi opened the floodgates for the Europeans.

From that point forward, tragedy ensued for the Central Americans with goals in the 11th and 23rd minute leaving the half-time score at 3-0.

If the first-half was disastrous, the second was a butchery. In the 50th minute it was 4-0 with another shortly after in the 55th. El Salvador however had no plans to surrender and got a goal of their own through their talisman, Luis ‘El Pelé’ Ramírez.

Unfortunately for them, Hungary weren’t in a forgiving mood either and continued their attack on the goal protected by – if you can use that word – by Luis Guevara Mora.

It was then where the ‘Kiss show’ began, with the striker coming on as a second-half substitute.

Goals in the 69th, 72nd and 76th minute completed the fastest hat trick World Cup history, interrupted by another goal from Lázár Szentes in the 70th.

In short, four goals were hammered home in seven minutes and the story remains relevant to this day. The agony for El Salvador ended shortly after, with the final 10-1 scored by Nyilasi.

That tournament was one to forget for the Central Americans. Rumours emerged after the game that the players went rogue, away from their manager’s wishes, and looking at the result they were ill-advised to do so.

They lost both of their other games as well, although with more respectable scorelines: 0-1 against Belgium and 0-2 against Argentina.

Surprisingly, the historic win ended up being just a nice memory for the Hungarians, as they failed to progress to the latter stages.

Argentina and Belgium ended up qualifying from the group although both teams lost their next game, against Poland and Italy respectively.