Football match USA - England (1950)

The 1950 tournament was marked by the first appearance of the England national team at the World Cups . Prior to this, the Football Association of England boycotted three previous championships, in connection with the conflict with FIFA about the payment of money to amateur players ^[1] . The conflict was resolved only 4 years before this tournament ^[2] . England and the United States were drawn to draw in Group 2 along with the national teams of Spain and Chile . According to the rules of the 1950 tournament, only the winner of the group entered the final round. Before this match, both participants played the match: England defeated the Chileans 2-0, and the United States lost the Spaniards 1: 3 ^[3] .

At that time, the British called the “Kings of Football” ^[4] , because in the 5 post-war years they won 23 matches, lost 4 and tied 3. Shortly before the start of the World Cup on May 14, the British defeated the Portuguese in Lisbon with a score of 3: 5, and May 18 in Brussels - with a score of 1: 4 Belgians . The complete opposite of the British were the Americans, who, despite being third in the first World Cup , lost all seven matches after this success (including the World Cup 1934 and the 1948 Olympics) with a total score of 2:45, including having suffered such defeats as from Italians (1: 7), Norwegians (0:11) and North Irish (0: 5). The chances of winning the 1950 World Cup among the British were 3 to 1, and among the Americans - 500 to 1 ^[5] . The phrase printed in one of the English newspapers on the eve of the match says: “Only Eskimos and North Americans can play football” about the British attitude towards the US national team ^[6] . Residents of Belo Horizonte were not indifferent to the English match, and 10,000 tickets were sold to the stadium (also some sources say that 3,000 more tickets were bought by people associated with the Sete de Setembro football club , the owners of the stadium “ Independence ”) ^[7] .

Lineups

The British had a very strong and experienced team led by Stanley Matthews - one of the best players of his time ^[5] . However, he was not included in the composition for the game against the United States, since the leadership of the Football Association, headed by Arthur Drewry, decided not to change the winning composition of the English team ^[8] , and was present at the match only as a spectator, watching the progress of the meeting from the stands ^[9] . The next time Matthews was called up for the Canada tour, as the team decided to save their best player for more important meetings ^[10] . The captain of the England team for the match was appointed Billy Wright .

The US team was represented by a team of amateurs, most of whom were engaged in completely different activities: Walter Bar was a teacher at school, Frank Borgi worked as a hearse driver ^[5] , the rest of the players were mainly mail carriers or dishwashers by profession ^[11] . Because of this amateur status, one of the players in the US team, Ben McLaughlin , was forced to withdraw from the tournament in order to be able to return to work on time ^[10] . Three other players - Joe Mac , Ed Macilvenny and Joe Gatjens - were not US citizens at all, but FIFA did not exclude them from the national team just because they applied for American citizenship ^{[8] [10]} . US captain Bill Jeffrey appointed Ed McIlvenny captain for the game, despite Walter Bar being the captain. ^[12] In the first match against Spain, Geoffrey chose captain Harry Kio , who was fluent in Spanish, and he preferred the Scottish McIlvenny to play with England (by the way, Jeffrey himself was a Scotsman by birth) ^[12] .

Handouts before the match

The US team had only one training a day before flying to Brazil before a control meeting with the British ^[13] , and Stanley Matthews did not enter the field due to injury ^[12] . The British minimally beat the Americans 1-0 and after the game subjected them to massive ridicule, which angered the American team ^[8] . Before meeting against England already at the World Cup, Bill Jeffrey told reporters that his team did not even count on a draw ^[5] , and compared his players with sheep ready to go for slaughter ^{[10] [14]} . The British newspaper Daily Express wrote that it would be fair to score just three goals against the US team at the start, so as not to upset the Americans very much ^[15] .

Summary Report

First Half

The British began by lot from the center of the field. Already after a minute and a half, Stan Mortensen launched the first attack, making a canopy from the left flank to Roy Bantley, who shot at point-blank range on goal, but goalkeeper Frank Borgi was in place. By the 12th minute, the English delivered six shots on goal, but two of the six shots hit the post, one hit was higher than the crossbar, and in the remaining cases it played brilliantly Borgi ^[5] . At the 25th minute, the Americans created the first dangerous moment, striking at the goal of Bert Williams, but he was in place. The Englishmen struck back three shots on goal at the 30th, 31st and 32nd minutes, but twice Mortensen shot above the goal, and Tom Finney after a corner failed in an air duel with Frank Borgi ^[5] . At the 38th minute, Walter Bar struck the English goal from about 23 meters: Bert Williams rushed to the right, but at the 11-meter mark, Joe Gatjens successfully turned the ball into the left corner of the goal ^[16] . Nobody photographed the goal, because all the photographers were outside the gates of the Americans ^[8] . At the very end of the first half, Tom Finney missed the opportunity to equalize ^[5] .

The stadium was attended by 10 thousand Brazilian fans who supported the US team, and after a goal scored, the whole stadium exploded with applause and enthusiastic screams. Walter Bar later found out that the Brazilians did not want to enter the final part of the England team and therefore supported the American team fiercely ^[10] . The match itself was broadcast live ^[10] .

Second Half

The US team did not lose morale during the break and continued to attack, missing the moment to double the lead in the 54th minute ^[5] . At the 59th minute, according to FIFA, a free kick was awarded, but according to some other sources, it was a penalty ^[17] . One way or another, Stan Mortensen shot it, but Frank Borgi took the ball tight. After 15 minutes, the British again failed to realize the scoring opportunity, and the threat of defeating the ancestors of football became truly serious. Eight minutes before the end of the match, US player Charlie Colombo demolished Stan Mortensen on the penalty line, but the judge considered that the violation was not in the penalty area, and did not appoint a penalty. Colombo did not even receive a verbal suggestion, although throughout the game he constantly knocked down Mortensen ^[14] . After the free-kick, Alpha Ramsey struck Jimmy Mullen with his head, and it seemed that the English would go away from defeat, but at the last moment goalkeeper Frank Borgi took the ball literally from the goal line. The English again began to shout at the referee, but he was implacable: the ball did not cross the goal line. For these disputes, the British almost paid in the 85th minute when Frank Wallace hit the empty net, beating Bert Williams. From even greater shame of the British saved only Alf Ramsey, who stood in the way of the ball ^[5] . As a result, the US team won the victory with a score of 1: 0, and after the final whistle suffered in the hands of Joe Gathens, the author of the winning goal ^[8] . Harry Kio cried out in delight, “We defeated these bastards!” Reminding the players that in a previous meeting the English had taunted the Americans ^[8] .

Remaining Matches in the Group

The defeat was a blow to the England team, and in the last match of the group stage, she lost to the Spanish national team 1-0, despite her efforts, and as a result did not end up in the final round. The US team also did not leave the group, losing to the team of Chile with a score of 5: 2 ^[3] , however, the "star-striped" were leaving home in a joyous mood, since the victory over England became morally more important than leaving the group. However, the next time the US team got to the World Cup only in 1990. Spain, the group that won, reached the final group round, but took the last place (the Uruguay team became the champion, having won Brazil in the decisive match of the third round ) ^[18] . As a result of the tournament, John Souza got into the symbolic team: the newspaper Mundo Esportivo included him in the team (the next time only Claudio Reina was awarded such an honor) ^[12] .

After the match

Neither in the USA nor in England it was immediately possible to fully find out the details of the meeting: in the USA they regarded the score 1: 0 as a typo typo, and only Reuters understood that the Americans really won ^[8] . Dent Makskimming, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Disappatch newspaper, was the only American journalist based in Brazil, but he was forced to leave his job voluntarily and fly to Brazil at his own expense ^[5] . All the same, Makskimming sent his report to the newspaper ^[5] , and this report was the only one published in the USA regarding the meeting. The international news agency Associated Press briefly reported that the goal was scored by Ed Souza (not Joe Gatjens) and that the defeat greatly shocked the British ^[8] .

On the same day, at a cricket tournament, the England team unexpectedly lost to the West Indies team , and this defeat (and not a defeat in a football match against the USA) became the main news of the British media on June 29, 1950 ^[12] . There were rumors that the numbers of English newspapers appeared in mourning frames, but this was another myth: in those days, newspapers were much smaller in size, and the sports column was only on the last pages ^[14] . Since the news of the defeat of the cricket team occupied most of the newspaper strip, almost no one paid attention to the football note. Later, there were rumors that the British corrected the score by 10: 0 or 10: 1 in order to hide the fact of the team’s shameful performance ^[19] , but in one of the BBC broadcasts it was stated that no one reprinted or corrected the score in the newspapers ^[20] .

British journalists claimed that the Americans allegedly flew to Brazil through Ellis Island - this expression implied that the team was assembled from immigrants, since it was ships to the Ellis island that previously arrived with migrants. In fact, out of 11 players in the starting lineup, 8 were US citizens born in the United States (of which five were St. Louis natives) ^[21] , and only Joe Mac, Ed Macilvenny and Joe Gatjens were US citizens at the time of the match, only by applying for citizenship ^[22] . The British, taking advantage of this, demanded to protest the results of the match, citing the fact that Mac, Gatyens and McIlvenny did not have US citizenship, but on December 2, 1950, FIFA rejected the British requirements and recognized the result of the match final ^[12] . Even more often, journalists claimed that the team was assembled “on a string” from different teams and that they all worked as dishwashers (in reality, only Joe Gatjens was the dishwasher) ^[14] . In fact, the US team was made up of players from the Philadelphia National and St. Louis Simpkins Ford clubs, and the ligaments of these players, despite their amateur status, were quite played ^[8] .

The English team played in that match in blue t-shirts, and as a result, in England they decided to first abandon the blue uniform as “unsuccessful” ^[23] . Walter Bar claimed that the British would never again dare to wear blue t-shirts ^[24] , but the British still came out to play in blue uniform nine years later and lost again: this time they were defeated by the Peru national team with a score of 1: 4 ^{[25] ]} . In 1953 and 1954, the British suffered two defeats from the Hungarians with a score of 6: 3 and 7: 1, and as a result the British had to reorganize the entire football system in their homeland ^[4] .

The press did not remember the match between the national teams of England and the USA until 1994 - that year the World Cup was held in the USA. During this time, of the participants in the match, only Gino Pariani gave an interview to Italian journalists during the match for third place at the 1990 World Cup ^[26] . In 1994, on the eve of the tournament, newspapers finally remembered the 1950 match, and two years later, an English teacher at the University of Massachusetts, Jeffrey Douglas, wrote a book called The Game of Their Lives , which was filmed in 2005 ^[27] .

In American culture, a football match against England in 1950 was called “Miracle on the Lawn” ( English Miracle on Grass ) ^[28] by analogy with “ Miracle on Ice ” ^{[29] [30]} . The next time the United States and England met at the World Cup in 2010 ^[20] , and that meeting ended in a draw 1: 1 ^[31] .

• An article about the match on the FIFA website