The American dream

Goalkeeper Frank Borghi, now 80 and speaking from his home in St Louis, Missouri, recalled: "We were 500-1 underdogs. I went into every game hoping to win but in reality I just wanted to keep England down to four or five goals."

And 78-year-old Walter Bahr, whose shot was deflected in off the head of team-mate Joe Gaetjens, admitted: "There was never a doubt in our minds they were so much better than we were. The feeling was to try and keep the score respectable." Bahr vividly remembers the historic 37th-minute goal.

"I take a shot from 25-28 yards away," he said. "I hit it hard, maybe three or four feet off the ground.

"It has gone to Bert Williams's right. I'm sure he's going to get the ball, but he has to move to his right. Joe Gaetjens takes a dive and gets a deflection. Now, it certainly isn't a great head ball because all he does is get a piece of it that changes the trajectory of my shot. But Bert is leaning to his right and the ball goes into his goal on his left."

Bahr, who later turned down the chance to play for Manchester United, has seen the film and believes it will do much to raise the profile of the sport in America.

But he was dismayed by yet another example of Hollywood's habit of belittling British involvement in historical events of major importance - think Braveheart, The Patriot, Objective: Burma!, Titanic and U571.

For the match, played in front of a 30,000-crowd crammed into the Independence Stadium at Belo Horizonte, expatriate Scot McIlveney was promoted to captain the Americans against the "auld enemy".

Maybe it is something to do with the perceived psyche of American film goers that the producers of The Game felt the need to ignore the significance of McIlveney's ancestry and instead make the leader of these 11 gallant fellows an all-American hero.

Bahr said: "I was captain for about 10 years including the 1950 World Cup. But when we got to Brazil the first game was against Spain and since my team-mate Harry Keough spoke Spanish they made him captain.

"Against England our coach Bill Jeffrey, who was also Scottish-born, thought it would be a big feather in Eddie's cap to be captain. It was an honour for him and I think that was the proper thing to do. I was then captain for the last game against Chile and for years to come.

"Yet in the film I'm captain, and that's wrong. I know Eddie's widow lives in East Sussex and it is important she should know that an error has been made and Eddie really was the captain against England."

Borghi remembers the scenes at fulltime when Brazilian fans invaded the pitch to acclaim the victorious underdogs. He said: "They ran at myself, Johnnie "Clarkie" Souza, who had an outstanding game, and Joe, who scored the goal. They carried us on their shoulders to the dressing room.

"Poor Joe, he later went back to Haiti where he was born and I heard from his sister that he was murdered by Papa Doc's Tonton Macoutes."

And Bahr? "We were lucky," he said. "England were much better than us in that match but just couldn't win.

"Afterwards I didn't know if I should feel happy for myself and my teammates or sad for those poor guys who were going to have to go back to England and explain their loss.

"But after the game there wasn't one player in the English team who sulked, who refused to shake hands or say anything derogatory. That was a tremendous tribute to their sportsmanship."