NEW YORK: United States soccer is paying tribute, for the second time in just over a month, to another member of the team who created one of the greatest World Cup shocks.

Forward John ‘Clarkie’ Souza has died, aged 91, a month after defender Harry Keough. Both were in the side who defeated England 1-0 in Belo Horizonte in the 1950 finals in Brazil. Until that moment England, competing in the World Cup for the first time, had been joint favourites with Brazil.

Souza, a US National Soccer Hall of Fame inductee and originally from soccer cradle Fall River, Massachusetts, played his major club football  with Ponta Delgada who reached the US Open Cup final in 1946 and 1947 and won the US Amateur Cup in 1946, 1947 and 1948.

He made the first of his 16 national team appearances on July 13, 1947, in a 5-0 defeat by Mexico in Havana, Cuba. His two goals came in successive games in September 1949 against Mexico and Cuba. His last international was a 3-1 defeat against Mexico in Mexico City on January 14, 1954.

Souza, who served in the US Navy in the South Pacific during the Second World War, was not related to fellow US teammate Ed Souza, who also started in the victory against England.

 

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