Today is the 65th anniversary of perhaps the biggest goal in US soccer history: an amateur United States team, full of part-time players, defeating the English powerhouse 1-0 in an upset worthy of it's own movie. It is reported that some newspapers though it was a typo and reported the score as 10-0 to England, so reports are hard to find. What is a little easier to find is a video produced by FIFA. It tells the story in a way only it can tell. What is most striking about the game, however, is the belie in the US players that they could do it, because, in Harry Keough's words, "We scared the living hell out of [Spain]."The rest of the world, and the nation, did not.
This day is remembered by Joe Gaetjens's famous goal; however, he was imprisoned by the late Haitian dictator Devalier in 1969 and never seen again. Of all the great goals in US soccer history, this is only comparable to Paul Caliguri's goal against Trinidad to qualify for the 1990 World Cup, to usher in a new modern era for US soccer's success. Because I don't like to dwell on what-ifs, I'm not going to speculate how important Wondolowski's goal could have been if he made it in 2014 in Brazil. However, it would have been nice to have had a World Cup game in Belo Horizonte, because these US players in 2014 would have had a chance to play on holy ground, even if they couldn't play in that very stadium.
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