Oleg Salenko nets five goals against Cameroon at USA '94.

Russian striker Oleg Salenko set a World Cup record on this day in 1994 that has yet to be matched. He scored a whopping five goals as his side beat Cameroon 6-1 in a Group B fixture in Palo Alto.

Unfortunately for the Russians, they had already lost their first two matches to Brazil (0-2) and Sweden (1-3), so their big win against Cameroon wasn’t enough to take them through to the Second Round.

There were almost 75,000 fans inside Stanford Stadium to see Salenko open his account on 16 minutes after two Cameroon defenders had run into each other. He had completed his hat-trick by half-time, the third a penalty.

Two more Salenko goals in a three-minute period towards the end made it 5-1, the evergreen Roger Milla having found the net for the Italia 90 ‘surprise packet’. Then Radchenko, a substitute, ended the scoring on 82 minutes.

Salenko finished the tournament as its joint top scorer with six, remarkable since Russia had been knocked out in the first round. He only made a career total of eight appearances for Russia and didn’t score either before or after the ’94 World Cup.

He played club football in Spain and Scotland (for Rangers).