Short list of inaccuracies in The Game of Their Lives

*Disclaimer: As stated in my review of the movie The Game of Their Lives , I feel that the majority of the changes made to history needed to be made from a storytelling standpoint. I do feel though that they need to be pointed out.

The United States faced off against Stanley Matthews' traveling England team in an exhibition match in New York prior to leaving for Brazil . The match took place in a rainstorm and the U.S. squad fell 1-0 on a late free kick. Matthews was the only man on the England squad who had been selected to the World Cup roster. In TGOL the England squad is led by Stanley Mortenson (played by Gavin Rossdale), and the U.S. team loses by a much larger margin (eight or nine goals).

The United States played a warm-up match in Brazil two days before the start of the tournament: A 1-0 loss to Italy . This match is never mentioned in the film.

The United States two other matches in the World Cup were also ignored in TGOL . In their opening match of the tournament, the U.S. led Spain 1-0 at the half before giving up three goals in the second half and losing 3-1. During this match the Brazilian fans began to root heavily for the U.S. squad, and carried it through for the rest of the tournament. The third U.S. match of the Cup was against Chile . The match was tied 2-2 at the half before the U.S. fell 5-2. For what its worth, the only goal Spain gave up during group play was in their match against the United States .

In TGOL , much is made of the idea that the St. Louisans (with the exception of Borghi) had never met or played with/against many of the east coasters on the team. In reality, all of the St. Louisans had played in World Cup qualifying matches in 1949 with many of their future World Cup teammates. Some of them had also played in the Olympics in '48 with the same east coasters. The rift between Walter Bahr and PeeWee Wallace was much exaggerated, considering they had played together a number of times before.

Only 11 players appear as part of the U.S. World Cup team in TGOL (twelve if you consider the striker replaced by Joe Gaetjens). These are of course the 11 who appeared in the England match. In reality, there were more members of the U.S. squad in Brazil , including another from St. Louis , Bob Annis.