1950 US Soccer Team

Sick of hearing about how brave and amazing the women's world cup team is when they have a captain of the team celebrating the 9th goal against the little sisters of the poor and suing for more money when they recently lost to a U15 boys team. Wanted to call attention to the one of the greatest soccer teams in US Soccer history, the 1950 USMNT and the greatest victory in US Soccer history. To anyone interested in learning more about this story read The Game of Their Lives.

"Walter Bahr taught junior high in Philadelphia when he made the United States soccer team for the 1950 World Cup, playing a vital role in one of the sport’s greatest upsets. Team duty paid $100 a week."

"As Bahr recalls, he asked for a leave of absence near the end of the school year and was turned down. Finally, school officials relented.“I think I had to give up my salary the last few weeks,” he said."

"But stunningly, the United States defeated England, 1-0, in an early-round match. Among World Cup upsets, it is equaled perhaps only by North Korea’s victory against Italy in 1966. So shocking and unimaginable was the outcome, it is considered the equivalent of the Americans losing to the British in baseball."

"One of his Philadelphia friends, Ben McLaughlin, had also made the World Cup team, only to withdraw. “He couldn’t get off work,” Bahr said. “It was just after the war and jobs were tough to come by.”

"Frank Borghi, a hearse driver who grew up in St. Louis with Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola and played minor league baseball before settling on soccer, was less confident in goal. “I was hoping I could hold them to four or five goals,” Borghi, 84, said."

"The son of a Haitian mother and a Belgian father, Gaetjens had gone to New York from Haiti to study accounting at Columbia University and found part-time work as a dishwasher. He was not a United States citizen but was eligible for the World Cup because he had expressed his intention to become naturalized."

"In their retelling, the arc of America’s soccer’s development becomes evident: an immigrant game blossoming into a suburban, soccer-mom revolution."