The Hill is famous for baseball, but one of its proudest sporting moments happened on a soccer field in Brazil. On June 29, 1950, at Estádio Independência in Belo Horizonte, the United States beat England 1-0 at the World Cup. Several of the Americans had learned the game on The Hill’s streets and fields.
The match
The Missouri Sports Hall of Fame describes the result as what was then considered the biggest upset in U.S. soccer history. Joe Gaetjens scored the only goal with a header in the first half. Accounts differ slightly on the minute: the Associated Press obituary of goalkeeper Frank Borghi, published by Sports Illustrated, puts it in the 38th minute, while a 2007 St. Louis Public Radio story says the 37th.
Borghi then had to hold the lead. Around the 80th minute, according to the AP, he pushed away a header from England’s Billy Mullen that the English insisted had crossed the line; the referee disagreed. Borghi stayed modest about the win for the rest of his life. “But if we had played them again the next day, they’d probably beat us 10-0,” he told the AP.
Which players came from The Hill?
Five St. Louisans played for the U.S. that day: Frank Borghi, Charlie Colombo, Gino Pariani, Frank “Pee Wee” Wallace and Harry Keough. Most accounts, including St. Louis Public Radio, Soccerbible and Wikipedia, say four of the five were from The Hill, and the Hill 2000 neighborhood association says four of the five were members of the neighborhood’s boys’ clubs. Most do not say which four.
- Frank Borghi (1925–2015), the goalkeeper, grew up on The Hill, according to the AP.
- Gino Pariani (1928–2007), the son of Italian immigrants, grew up on The Hill playing soccer and softball with Yogi Berra, St. Louis Public Radio reported. Borghi recalled that the two lived on the same block of Daggett Avenue. Pariani married just days before flying to Brazil.
- Charlie Colombo (1920–1986), a center-half, is identified by St. Louis Magazine as a Hill resident, and Wikipedia says he was born and raised there.
The fourth Hill player is where sources diverge. St. Louis Magazine names Frank Wallace as the fourth and says Harry Keough came from Carondelet, which matches Keough’s 2012 obituary from St. Louis Public Radio placing his boyhood home on Vermont Avenue near Carondelet Park. The AP’s 2015 Borghi obituary, however, said The Hill produced five members of the 1950 team. Several other sources we read did not name Wallace at all, so his place on the Hill list rests mainly on St. Louis Magazine.
The 1950 team was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1976, according to the AP. The story was told again in the 2005 film The Game of Their Lives, in which Gerard Butler played Borghi.
The 2025 mural
On June 24, 2025, St. Louis City SC unveiled a mural on the side of Anthonino’s Taverna, 2225 Macklind Ave., to mark the 75th anniversary of the win. It depicts all five St. Louis players. The artist’s name is spelled Scott Pondrom in the text of St. Louis Public Radio’s report and by Soccerbible; the station’s photo caption spells it “Pondron” and St. Louis Magazine printed “Podrom.” We use Pondrom, the spelling also used in a 2019 St. Louis Public Radio story about his work in Belleville. According to St. Louis Public Radio, he painted for nine days straight.
The club paired the mural with other tributes that season, including a sash-pattern home kit and a pennant giveaway featuring the “St. Louis Five,” St. Louis Magazine reported. Anthonino’s, founded by the Scarato family in 2003, is also a popular stop for toasted ravioli.
For more on the neighborhood’s past, see our History of The Hill timeline.
Sources: St. Louis Public Radio, St. Louis Magazine, Soccerbible, Sports Illustrated (AP), St. Louis Public Radio (2007), St. Louis Public Radio (2012), St. Louis Public Radio (2019), Hill 2000 (hillstl.org), Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Wikipedia, Anthonino’s Taverna
