The first meeting, during the 1950 World Cup Finals in Brazil, produced a shock result. Playing in their first Finals, England were one of the favourites to lift the Jules Rimet Trophy and won their first match 2-0 against Chile in Rio.

Four days later an England team that included Billy Wright as captain, Tom Finney, Wilf Mannion and Stan Mortensen played the Americans in Belo Horizonte and lost to Joe Gaetjens’ (above) glancing header on 38 minutes.

One London editor thought the 1-0 scoreline must have been a misprint for 1-10. But USA had only lost narrowly to an FA XI in New York two weeks earlier and had led Spain until the last 15 minutes of their opening Finals match. Efforts from Mortensen and Mullen may have crossed the line but England made relatively few chances for all their possession.

Three years later England got some revenge with a 6-3 friendly win at Yankee Stadium in New York. It was the first England match played under artificial light and Finney and Lofthouse grabbed a brace each. Then England won 8-1 in Los Angeles in 1959 and 10-0 in New York in 1964, Fred Pickering scoring a debut hat-trick in the latter.

More than 20 years later, in 1985, England achieved another comprehensive victory in Los Angeles in the final match of a summer tour that had started in Mexico. Kerry Dixon and Gary Lineker each netted twice as England won 5-0.

Graham Taylor’s England suffered a reverse in 1993 that revived memories of the debacle in Belo Horizonte. It was a difficult period for the team, Norway having beaten us 2-0 a week earlier in a World Cup qualifier in Oslo, and the scoreline was depressingly similar in the "US Cup" in Boston’s Foxboro Stadium.

The seventh and most recent edition of an England v USA match, the first on English soil, was played on 07 September 1994. The Americans had hosted and done well in that summer’s World Cup Finals, while England had failed to qualify. But the visitors were unambitious in their approach as a Wembley crowd of 38,629 saw Alan Shearer notch both goals in England’s 2-0 win.

Summary of Results

1950: USA 1 England 0 in Belo Horizonte
1953: USA 3 England 6 in New York
1959: USA 1 England 8 in Los Angeles
1964: USA 0 England 10 in New York
1985: USA 0 England 5 in Los Angeles
1993: USA 2 England 0 in Boston
1994: England 2 USA 0 at Wembley