Soccer is now the fourth most popular sport in America. But, in 1964, the game was mostly an afterthought in the United States. That year, a soccer team called the LA Kickers won the U.S. Open Cup trophy in a game that took place in front of a handful of people at an old baseball stadium in South LA. Now, 60 years later, the members of that championship team have finally gotten the recognition they deserve. LA Times sportswriter Kevin Baxter talked about the team’s legacy with Kelvin Washington on "LA Times Today."

Baxter explained that soccer teams in the 1950s and 1960s were largely semi-pro groups of immigrants, and most of the prominent teams were on the East Coast. 

“When the Kickers came to be in 1951, [the team was] started by German refugees, immigrants. A guy named Albert Ebert was one of the owners of that team, and he decided he was going to recruit great German players from all over the country to make the LA Kickers a dominant team. And that’s what he started to do in 1951,” Baxter said. “In 1963, the Kickers became the first American soccer club to go on a world tour. They played teams in New Zealand, Australia, Iran, Germany. And then in 1964, the Kickers won four championships, including the U.S. Open Cup.”

Three players from that championship-winning team were honored at the recent U.S. Open Cup final at the BMO stadium. 

 “These three players came to the stadium, carried the trophy on the field in front of 22,500 people. They got a huge ovation. And in my mind, that was the ovation they should have gotten in 1964. And the great thing is BMO Stadium where LAFC plays is about two miles from Wrigley Field. So you could maybe hear those cheers at the site of the old stadium where they played,” Baxter said. 

Baxter attributes the LA Kickers and the other teams of their time with popularizing soccer in the U.S.. 

“These guys kept soccer alive during that period and they made it possible for a professional league, first the NASL, then MLS, to come along. They made it even possible for the 1994 World Cup to come to U.S. It’s coming back in 2026. These guys did the grunt work. These guys did the work of playing in front of 5,000 people, of having day jobs and playing on the weekend... I think you could arguably say if it wasn’t for these three players and their team and for what Albert Ebert did with the LA Kickers, we wouldn’t be talking about the World Cup coming to Southern California in a couple of years,” he said. 

Watch the full interview above.

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