America’s defeat of England in the 1950 World Cup was so much of an upset, that the English newspapers assumed their information was wrong, and reported the result as 10-1 to England.
By Conor Hogan
The date was the 29 June 1950, the place was the Estadio Independencia in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
It was the first World Cup that England had even bothered to enter. Previous to that they had considered the competition in general, and Fifa in particular, beneath them. It didn’t matter who won the World Cup, as far as the English were concerned they were the true ‘Kings of Football’. They had invented the game, and they were the best at it.
England in 1950 had a team comprising of players Tom Finney, Alf Ramsey, and Stan Mortensen (they even had the luxury of not starting Stanley Matthews, considered by some as the beat player in the world at the time). Their post-war record consisted of 23 wins, 3 draws, and only 4 losses. The United States, on the other hand, had conceded 45 goals in their last 7 matches. The American goalkepper, Frank Borghi said that, ‘he was hoping to hold [England] down to four or five goals.’
England completely dominated the match. By the 12th minute they’d had six shots on goal, two of which had hit the post. The Americans didn’t have a single shot themselves until nearly the half hour mark. England went close three more times before the unthinkable happened. Walter Bahr took a shot from distance in the 38th minute, the English goalkeeper Bert Williams missed it, and Joe Gaetjeans headed the ball into the back of the net.
So unexpected was the loss, that when the newspapers in England were given the scoreline they presumed it was a typing error, and reported the result as 10-1 to England. Both teams lost their final group games, and neither qualified for the knockout stage. A film called ‘The Miracle Match’ was made based on the match in 2005, starring Gerard “This is Sparta” Butler.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!
