The Game of Their Lives

A new movie, The Game of Their Lives from the makers of Hoosiers (my favorite all time movie) and Rudy (a movie I still haven't seen) is going to chronicle the improbable success 1950 American World Cup team. The reason this team stands out in history is that they upset World Cup favorite England, 1-0, and then returned home to little or no fanfare. Apparently some newspapers chose to not even report the score because they assumed it was a typo. The movie is only being released in select cities at this point, because it was somewhat low budget, and I'm not sure if they plan to go nationwide. This is one of the more amazing stories in U.S. sports history. Every 4 years it gets a little play when the World Cup is on TV, but its ignored the rest of the time. This victory is possibly more amazing than the defeat of the Russians during the 1980 Olympic Hockey tournament, but in 1950 soccer didn't make the news too often. It was basically a group of semi-pro soccer players that were put together 10 days before the tournament, and had trouble getting uniforms and equipment. Everyone should go see this movie, to get a little soccer history in you, and because it should be pretty good. Anytime England loses in soccer, I laugh a little on the inside. They've given up basic dental hygiene in exchange for soccer excellence and to see them lose in soccer (something they spend much more time and money on), its just funny.