CHAPTER ONE:
USA vs. ENgland
in the 1950
world cup
Soccer didn’t start in America on June 29th, 1950. But the 1950 US Men’s National team’s impossible victory over England in the World Cup was an anchor moment – our first moment – in the decades long journey that soccer has taken back to prominence in America. Five St. Louis natives drove that victory. One became an indispensable spirit of the game in America for decades to follow. This moment, these men… without them we may still be looking for America’s embrace of the world’s game.
(Photo: Joe Gaetjens. Photo credit: Source: This Day In Football History)
CHAPTER ONE:
USA vs. england In the 1950
WORLD CUP
It’s safe to say that, by 1950, when the World Cup returned, America wasn’t thinking about it. We weren’t a soccer nation at that point. The US did manage to qualify for the 1950 affair with two wins against Cuba, despite a poor international record in the years prior. So the US had to send a team and assembled a roster of 15 players from across the country.
Meanwhile, England’s presence at the competition was far and away the biggest story surrounding it. They were the unquestioned strongest team in the world. They had stars like Stanley Matthews, considered the best player in the game, alongside Wilf Mannion and Tom Finney. They walked into the World Cup with 3-to-1 odds to win the whole thing and it was just assumed they would bring home the trophy. Still, when England learned they would be playing the US, the question wasn’t if they would win, but by how much.
What subsequently unfolded in USA’s historic 1-0 win over England on June 29, 1950 would impact American soccer for year’s to come.
Listen to Chapter One of Founding Futbol to learn more.
(Photo: US goalkeeper Frank Borghi saves a shot; Photo credit: Courtesy of U.S. Soccer and National Soccer Hall of Fame)
Our GUEST
Geoffrey Douglas is the author of The Game of Their Lives, a book about the 1950 World Cup game between USA and England. The book was also adapted into a movie, starring Gerard Butler. His other books include two widely-reviewed memoirs – “Class” and “The Classmates” (2008). You can visit his website to learn more about Geoffrey’s work.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
To learn more about the 1950 World Cup between USA and England, we recommend the following resources.
Books
- The Game of Their Lives by Geoffrey Douglas
Articles
- ‘The greatest sporting upset of all time’: When the US beat the ‘giants’ of England at the 1950 World Cup by Ben Morse
- Who Was Dent McSkimming? by Stefan Fatsis
- When England-USA served up one of the World Cup’s biggest upsets
- World Cup 2010: How the USA’s 1950 amateurs upset England and the odds by Ewen MacAskill
Our PERSPECTIVE
The 1950 World Cup win by the US over England was unquestionably an anomaly. England was the superior soccer nation and America’s interest in the game was waning. So it’s easy to look at the win as a fluke. But, it meant more than that. When the US won 1-0, it set this country back on a long path towards soccer’s popularity. The goal, the game, the victory over the greatest team in the world, it may have been an accident. It may have been an anomaly. It may be something that, in a vacuum, doesn’t have historical meaning. But the momentum that it created, the trends that it began, the outcomes that it triggered, those do matter. The men that took the inertia created on that day in June of 1950 and directed it towards the growth of soccer in this country, that has meaning. They are the first reason soccer is popular in this country.
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