Joseph Gaetjens

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Joseph Eduard Gaetjens , also Jo Gaetjens , (born March 19, 1924 in Port-au-Prince , † probably 1964 ) was a Haitian football player . As a player in the US national team (although not a US citizen ), he scored the winning goal in the 1-0 win over England at the 1950 World Cup .

The son of a Haitian mother and father of German origin came to the USA from Haiti in the late 1940s to study at Columbia University . After the USA went down 9-0 against Italy at the 1948 Olympics and later suffered further debacles in friendly games, e. B. 0:11 in Norway, reinforcements were desperately sought, but hardly progressed, as two World Cup qualifying defeats with six goals conceded against Mexico showed. Somehow they managed the easy qualification with a win and a draw against Cuba.

After a scout had seen Gaetjens play and spoke to him, he applied for US citizenship and was appointed to the US national team for the 1950 World Cup in Brazil before it was granted in 1950 . Already in the first game against Spain the USA achieved a respectable success when they had led up to the 80th minute and only then lost with 1: 3.

A few days later, Gaetjens then headed the legendary goal for the USA's 1-0 win against England , which was taking part in a World Cup for the first time. Gaetjens contributed to the surprising elimination of the English in the preliminary round (England also lost to Spain). The protest of the English against the eligibility of Gaetjens and his Belgian-born Haitian compatriot Joe Maca as well as the Scottish team captain Ed McIlvenney was rejected by the FIFA arbitral tribunal on the idiosyncratic reason that all of them had applied for naturalization and had then received clearance from the US association . No source claims that Gaetjens ever actually became a US citizen even after this success. The goal against England was his only World Cup goal, the USA lost their third game against Chile 2-5.

After the World Cup, Gaetjens went to France for three years and played for AS Troyes in the second division. He then went back to his homeland, where he worked as a sales representative for Colgate-Palmolive and ran his own laundries in Port-au-Prince. In addition, he continued to play football and in 1953 took part in a qualifying game for the 1954 World Cup for Haiti against Mexico .

On July 8, 1964, he was kidnapped by the notorious Haitian secret police Tonton Macoute because his brothers in exile had stood up for the Duvalier's opponents . Since then he has been considered lost.

In the film "The Game of Their Lives" (2005), the fair-skinned Catholic Gaetjens is falsely portrayed as a black voodoo fan.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ ESPN: Chasing Gaetjens
  2. [Jürgens / Köster: The 100 best games of all time. ISBN 978-3-517-08677-4 , p. 120]
  3. Joe Gaetjens: The lost hero  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed June 14, 2010)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.rp-online.de