Frank Borghi, the St. Louis goalie who was instrumental in pulling off one of the biggest upsets in soccer history, died Monday night of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 89.
Borghi, one of five players from St. Louis on the team, was in goal for the United States in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil where the Americans defeated England, at the time considered one of the best teams in the world, 1-0. “I was hoping to hold them down to a few goals,” Borghi told the Post-Dispatch in 2009. “Maybe four or five goals.”
Instead, Borghi, also an accomplished baseball and softball player who played two seasons in the Cardinals’ organization, pitched a shutout. He made a key save in the second half on a header that was already behind him, knocking it wide of the net. “I was lucky to jump in the air and deflect it with my right hand,” he said.
When the game ended, the Brazilian fans in Belo Horizonte, who saw England as their main competition for the championship, ran on the field and carried Borghi off on their shoulders. “I didn’t know what they were doing at first,” he said later. “I was kind of nervous. They picked me up and carried me 110 yards to the dugout. It was kind of exciting.”
Borghi made nine appearances with the national team from 1949 to 1954 at a time when the team, composed of amateurs, didn’t play many games. He played in three World Cup matches and five World Cup qualifying matches. He won the U.S. Open Cup, in effect the national championship at a time there wasn’t an American professional league, playing for the Simpkins-Ford club in 1948 and 1950. He was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1976.
Borghi left school at 15 to work and served as a medic in World War II, seeing action on Utah Beach on D-Day (where he gave his poncho to a dying German soldier), at the Battle of the Bulge and at the Bridge at Remagen, where he came to the aid of an injured soldier named Jack Buck. Decades would pass before the goalie and the announcer discovered they were both in K company of the 47th Regiment of the Ninth Infantry Division and had crossed paths on that day. Borghi was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
After the war, he drove a hearse for his uncle’s mortuary and then became a funeral director at Calcaterra Funeral Home on The Hill.
Borghi wasn’t a soccer natural. By his own admission, he wasn’t great with his feet — teammates often took goal kicks for him — but with his huge hands and quick reflexes, he was an ideal goalie.
“You couldn’t beat him,” said former Florissant Valley coach Pete Sorber, who played against Borghi. “What can you say about a goalie? He can make saves or he can’t. Frank made them.”
But memories of Borghi as a person stood out as much as his soccer achievements.
“The best part about Frank was what a gentleman he was,” Sorber said. “He couldn’t have been nicer. He always had a smile. He was a credit to himself and to everyone in the game.”
“He was a gentleman, quiet and soft-spoken,” said soccer commentator Bill McDermott. “He was the absolute personification of a gentleman. He didn’t say a whole lot, but he couldn’t have been more genuine.”
In addition to Borghi, Harry Keough, Gino Pariani, Frank (Peewee) Wallace and Charley Colombo were the St. Louisans on the field for that historic win over England. (Also on the team from St. Louis were Bob Annis, a reserve who didn’t play, and assistant coach William “Chubby” Lyons.) Keough died in 2012, Pariani in 2007, Colombo in 1986 and Wallace in 1979.
Borghi’s death leaves only one living member of the 1950 team, Walter Bahr of Philadelphia.
Borghi is survived by his wife of 61 years, Rose Marie; seven children, Carolyn, Bette, Chuck, Terese, Tony, Frank and John; 12 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
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