• tal
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    5 months ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v_England_(1950_FIFA_World_Cup)

    On 29 June 1950, the United States defeated England 1–0 in a World Cup group match at Estádio Independência in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

    The odds were 3–1 the English would win the Cup, and 500–1 for the U.S.

    Newspaper headlines in most World Cup nations trumpeted the shocking upset, except ironically in the United States and England. There was only one U.S. journalist at the World Cup: Dent McSkimming of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; he could not persuade the newspaper to pay for the trip, and had taken time off work to cover the event.[6]: 4  McSkimming’s report of the match was one of the few to appear in a major U.S. newspaper;[6]: 141  [17] some other journals carried agency reports of the match.[18]

    1950: “We have a soccer team?”

    • Jake Farm@sopuli.xyz
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      5 months ago

      So soccer wasn’t much of a thing in 50s America? I would never have guessed that given how ubiquitous it is now.

      • tal
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        5 months ago

        Soccer’s more popular now than it was then, but even today it’s far-less popular in the US than in a number of other countries, and considerably less popular than the “big” sports.

        kagis

        https://news.gallup.com/poll/610046/football-retains-dominant-position-favorite-sport.aspx

        41% of American adults have football (this is American football, not soccer) as their favorite sport.

        10% baseball.

        9% basketball

        5% soccer

        4% ice hockey

        3% auto racing

        2% ice/figure skating

        And the stuff below that is 1% or less.

        • Jake Farm@sopuli.xyz
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          5 months ago

          After finding out rugby, I could not for the life of me understand why people prefer gridiron football. It is so slow and only occasionally interrupted with action.

          How many americans have played in a soccer team as a child though? I wonder how that would shift the statistics.