Critical Review of The Game Lives Of Their
...d off being nothing less than expected. England possessed, played very disciplined, but almost all of their shots seemed to strike the woodwork or sail high and wide. Where the English passed around and played conservatively, the Americans were aggressive going hard into every tackle and taking the ball straight to goal whenever they won it. The Unites States managed to score in the 37th minutes with a goal from Joe Gaetjens. The Americans were able to hold on and finish off what has been proclaimed as “the biggest upset in English football history.” The Game of Their Lives is by no way a simple commentary of the game. Geoffrey Douglas definitely spent some time with his research, whether it was a personal interview or behind a book. He goes well into the life stories of several of the players from the 1950 squad. Gino Pariana, for instance, was a semi-professional player from St. Louis who also worked at a dishwasher and a mailman. Joe Gaetjens, the goal scorer in the game, was from New York City. He worked as a dishwasher and was a part-time accounting student at Columbia University. Frank Borghi, the goalkeeper, played with Gino Pariani in St. Louis for the Simpkins Ford soccer team who won the city championship in 1952. Borghi excelled at baseball and played in the minor leagues for several years. He also played with Yogi Berra before being drafted at age 16. Charley Columbo played with Pariani, Broghi, and Frank “Peewee” Wallace on the Joe Simpkins Ford soccer team. He was seen as a tough, courageous, and often times a dirty player, though his teammates denied that accusation. Harry Keough was well documented in the book. He played in St. Louis against the before mentioned Simpkins Ford team. He went on to coach the Saint Louis University soccer team to five national championships in his sixteen years coaching there. The Game of Their Lives goes beyond a summary of the game and chronicles the lives of the men. After reading the book for the first time, the format of the material within the chapters took some getting used to. Rather than giving a commentary of the game followed by discussion of the players’ lives or topics pertaining to events from their lives, they are juxtaposed. In a chapter, it will begin with a short discourse of play, only to be interrupted by several paragraphs commenting on the early life of one of the players. The information given on the game is good – it is very precise, well-worded, and flows almost like poetry. However, being interrupted by a short dialog that has little to do with the game is distracting. Some of the interjections are fitting and are in a logical place in the text. In the beginnings of the book, I would have much preferred to have had the commentary on the game itself together, followed by the collection of stories of the lives of the players. As I continued through the book, however, this did not bo...