 | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Joseph Edouard Gaetjens | ||
| Date of birth | (1924-03-19)March 19, 1924 | ||
| Place of birth | Port-au-Prince,Haiti | ||
| Date of death | July 10, 1964(1964-07-10) (aged 40) | ||
| Place of death | Port-au-Prince,Haiti | ||
| Height | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) | ||
| Position | Center forward | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1938–1947 | Etoile Haïtienne | ||
| 1947–1950 | Brookhattan | 64 | (42) |
| 1951–1952 | Racing Club de Paris | 4 | (2) |
| 1952–1953 | Olympique Alès | 15 | (2) |
| 1953–1957 | Etoile Haïtienne | ||
| International career | |||
| 1944–1953 | Haiti | 3 | (0) |
| 1950 | United States | 3 | (1) |
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Joseph Edouard Gaetjens (/ˈɡeɪdʒɛnz/GAY-jenz;[1]March 19, 1924 –July 10, 1964[presumed]) was a professionalsoccer player who played as acenter forward. Born inHaiti, he representedits national team before and after playing for theUnited States team in the1950 FIFA World Cup, in which he scored the winning goal in the1–0 upset ofEngland.
Gaetjens won his homenational championship in 1942 and 1944 with top-levelEtoile Haïtienne. He then moved to theAmerican Soccer League (ASL) and led all players with 18 goals in 15 games for New York'sBrookhattan during the 1949–50 season. He was posthumously inducted into the United StatesNational Soccer Hall of Fame in 1976.
Gaetjens is among theLes 100 Héros de la Coupe du Monde ("100 Heroes of the World Cup"), which included the top 100 World Cup Players from 1930 to 1990, a list drawn up in 1994 by theFrance Football magazine based exclusively on their performances at World Cup level.
Joe Gaetjens was born in Haiti's capital ofPort-au-Prince on March 19, 1924, to Edmond and Antonine Defay, a well-to-doHaitian family who lived in an upscale neighborhood of Port-au-Prince calledBois Verna. His great-grandfather Thomas, was a native ofBremen, in northern Germany, who supposedly had been sent to Haiti byFrederick William III, the King ofPrussia, as a business emissary arriving shortly after 1825; although the validity for this claim is uncertain by family members.[2][3] He married Leonie Déjoie, whose father was a general in a time where Haiti's independence was officially recognized by France. The family was quite prosperous, and although by the time of Joe's birth their wealth had decreased significantly after theUnited States occupation of Haiti (1915–34), in which the economic isolation of Germany due toWorld War I and conflicts over family assets between sons took its toll on the family's business interests, they were still living among the Haitian elite. When Gaetjens was born, his father registered hisbirth certificate with the German embassy, in case he ever wanted to gain German citizenship.[3]
Gaetjens joinedEtoile Haïtienne at the age of fourteen and won twoLigue Haïtienne championships in 1942 and 1944. In his first championship appearance, at the age of eighteen, came against longer establishedRacing Club Haïtien, another club inPort-au-Prince.[note 1] Down 3–0 at halftime and aheckling goalkeeper directed at Gaetjens after each goal scored, "Ti-Joe" urged his teammates to hold its defense to allow no more goals. Less than ten minutes after Racing's last goal, Gaetjens rebounded and scored to break the shutout. At the 53rd minute, Fritz Joseph scored. With seven minutes remaining, Frérot Rouzier scored the tying goal equalizing the match at 3–3. At the final minutes of regulation, a defiant Gaetjens kept on the offense, breaking the tie at 3–4, which ended up being the game-winner.[2][5] To this day, Racing Club Haïtien refuses to play matches on the "Jeudi Saint" (Holy Thursday); the day ofwashing of the feet.[5] During his tenure with the club, he became known for his goal-scoring headers.[6]
Gaetjens went toNew York City in 1947 to study accounting atColumbia University on a scholarship from the Haitian government and concluded that he could not make a living from professional soccer in Haiti. During this time, he played three seasons forBrookhattan of theAmerican Soccer League (ASL). In his first season during 1947–48, he scored the second-most goals in the league with 14.[7][8][9] In his third season, he won the league's scoring title totaling 18 goals in 15 games during 1949–50.[10][11][12] He was making $25 per game, while also working for the Brookhattan owner's restaurant and washing dishes.[6]
At the end of the World Cup, Gaetjens left for France to play inDivision 1, where he briefly played forRacing Club de Paris; scoring twice in four games and then forDivision 2Olympique Alès; scoring twice in fifteen games.[3][13]
Gaetjens returned to Haiti in 1954 and remained active in soccer, rejoining Etoile Haïtienne,[3] and also became a spokesman forColgate-Palmolive. He played a few seasons and then left the game for good in 1957, a few months after the birth of his first son.[2]
Gaetjens debuted on the international scene on April 2, 1944, for the Haiti national team, losing toCuraçao, 0–5. In the following match on April 5, 1944, againstVenezuela, the Haitian team was shut out 0–2. Both matches were friendlies.[14]
His success with Brookhattan attracted the attention ofU.S. Soccer, and Gaetjens made the national team for the 1950 World Cup.[15]
Gaetjens played three games at the World Cup, including one of the greatest World Cup upsets in history, in which Gaetjens scored the only goal in a1–0 victory in which the American soccer team defeated the hugely favored English atBelo Horizonte.Walter Bahr had taken a shot from about 25 yards away and the ball was heading to goalkeeperBert Williams's right. It appeared to be a relatively easy save, but Gaetjens dove headlong and grazed the ball enough that it went to the goalkeeper's left instead, with his momentum preventing him from stopping the ball. Williams later considered the goal to be a result of a lucky deflection, but this view was disputed byLaurie Hughes, who was defending Gaetjens on the play.[3]
Although Gaetjens was not a United States citizen, he had declared his intention of becoming one, and under the rules of the United States Soccer Football Association at that time was allowed to play. However, Gaetjens never actually did gain American citizenship.[16]
On December 27, 1953, Gaetjens played in a World Cup Qualifier forHaiti againstMexico.[14]
Gaetjens was not interested in politics, but his family was. He was related toLouis Déjoie (his great-grandfather Thomas married Leonie Déjoie), who lost the1957 Haitian presidential election toFrançois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, and although the family also had connections to the new president, Gaetjens's younger brothers Jean-Pierre and Fred became associated with a group of exiles in theDominican Republic who wanted to stage acoup.[3]
OnJuly 8, 1964, the morning after Duvalier declared himself "president for life", the rest of the Gaetjens family fled the country in fear of reprisal for the younger Gaetjens brothers' rebellious associations, but Joe stayed, thinking that Duvalier's regime would be uninterested in him since he was only a sports figure. That morning, he was arrested by the secret police—theTonton Macoutes—and was taken to a prison calledFort Dimanche notorious for its brutally inhumane practices,[3] where it is presumed he was killed some time later that month. His body has never been found.[citation needed]
In 1972, Gaetjens was honored in a benefit game involving theNew York Cosmos and a team composed of local Haitians atYankee Stadium. Joe Gaetjens was posthumously inducted into the United StatesNational Soccer Hall of Fame in 1976.[3]
In 2010, his son Lesly Gaetjens wrote a biography about his father:The Shot Heard Around the World: The Joe Gaetjens Story.[2]
The jersey number worn by Gaetjens during the 1950 World Cup match against England remains unknown, with several accounts from family members and historians unable to verify various claims. The number was not recorded in an official match report; theNational Soccer Hall of Fame stated the number was 18 and citedWalter Bahr, but he was unable to verify the claim. An unnamedESPN producer for "Outside the Lines" who worked with footage of the match for a special dedicated to Gaetjens stated to an ESPN journalist that they were "98 or 99 percent sure" that the number was 18.[17]
Gaetjens, although light-skinned, was portrayed by "dark-skinned" Haitian actorJimmy Jean-Louis in the 2005 filmThe Game of Their Lives. He was also depicted as a practitioner ofVoodoo, which outraged his family, leading them to proclaim how ludicrously inaccurate the interpretation was.[3][18] In reality, Gaetjens, like most Haitians, grew up as aCatholic and went to church every Sunday. His sister, Mireille, voiced her displeasure and condemned the notion over a phone interview by saying: "Our family traded rum and coffee and ran schools... No family member was into voodoo. I'venever even seen voodoo being practiced. Nobody in the family hasever even set foot in a voodoo church!"[3]
When Gaetjens first arrived in the US from Haiti, he was mistaken forBelgian of theFlemish-speaking part of the country, due to the sounding of his surname ending in-tjens and the fact that migration in waves from Belgium were common during the 19th century. However, his great-grandfather was from Bremen of northern Germany and the Gaetjens name is not common in Flanders. Although, a variant does exist over Germany's northern border inDenmark asGätjens.[3]
Gaetjens was a fluent speaker of French, Spanish and English.[3]
| Club | Season[note 2] | League[23] | U.S. Open Cup[24] | Lewis Cup[24] | Duffy Cup[24] | Friendlies[24] | Total | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps*[note 3] | Goals | ||
| Brookhattan | 1947–48 | 20 | 14 | 20 | 14 | ||||||||
| 1948 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 4 | |||||||
| 1948–49 | 17 | 4 | 17 | 4 | |||||||||
| 1949 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 3 | |||||
| 1949–50 | 15 | 18 | 15 | 18 | |||||||||
| 1950 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 7 | |||
| 1950–51[note 4] | 12 | 6 | 12 | 6 | |||||||||
| Total | 64 | 42 | 14 | 5 | 10 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 95 | 56 | |
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