May 15 (1926)

The first major European club to visit St. Louis gives a team of hand-picked local stars a lesson as Hakoah of Vienna outclasses the St. Louis All-Stars, 4-2, at St. Louis U. Field. Hakoah, an all-Jewish team with players from all over Europe that had not lost in two years before its U.S. tour, scores all its goals in the first half. Future U.S. Soccer Hall of Famer Jimmy Dunn tallies the first goal for the locals, who trailed 3-0 when he scored. Moritz Hausler and Alexander Nemes-Neufeld score in the first 10 minutes. Max Grunwald and Alfred Shoenfeld score late in the opening half. The estimated crowd of 9,000 is the largest to watch a soccer match during the 1925-26 season in St. Louis. They see their local stars “outplayed . . . at almost every angle of the game,” future U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame Journalist Dent McSkimming will write in the next day’s Post-Dispatch. McSkimming will note that Hakoah plays a style not seen in St. Louis before: “The hallbacks figured strongly in the attack, coming up to take a back pass from a harassed forward and giving the ball quickly to some man who was wide open.” Hakoah had attracted 46,000, a record crowd at the time for a U.S. soccer game, for a match at the Polo Grounds in New York on May 1. Several Hakoah players will stay in the United States and form Hakoah of New York, which will win the 1929 National Challenge Cup.