Even though they won their first qualifying match 6-1 over Turkmenistan, Kuwait had shown no indication that they were capable of producing such a scoreline. But Bhutan were not the stoutest competition, having recently ended a self-imposed exile from international football to join FIFA earlier that year (they lost their opening game 3-0 to Nepal).
Kuwait took a few minutes to get going, with Jassem Al-Houwaidi scoring the opener in the 17th minute. But that one opened the floodgates, as Bashir Abdullah scored the second in the 20th minute--it was the first of his eight goals on the day (20', 24', 38', 45' (pen.), 47', 50', 59', 89'). Al-Houwaidi added another four (36' (pen.), 39', 52' (pen.), 57') and Ahmed Al-Mutairi got a hat-trick (21', 51', 63'). The other four were scored by Fawwaz Bakhit (31'), Nohair Al-Shammari (21'), Issam Sakeen (65'), and Ahmed Jassem (77' (pen.)).
The scoreline beat the previous international record of 13-0, which was set about three weeks earlier when China beat Guam 19-0 in the same qualifying series. But it was beaten when Australia beat Tonga 22-0 in 2001.
