Philadelphia was central to the formation of the first two pro soccer leagues in the US, the National League baseball-backed American League of Professional Football, and the American Association of Professional Football, which played its first games before, and outlived, the ALPF.
As the Union prepare to host their second US Open Cup final, a look at Philadelphia-area teams in the final throughout the history of the country’s oldest national soccer tournament, which has had local winners ten times since 1914.
A look at the founding of the EPSA, originally known as the Foot Ball Association of Eastern Pennsylvania and District, in April, 1913, six days after the founding of the United States of America Football Association, known today as the US Soccer Federation.
Last Friday, a 103-year-old championship medal won by a Scottish goalkeeper in Philadelphia returned to the city to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Soccer Hall of Fame. Here’s the story of the goalkeeper who won that medal and how it came back from Scotland to Philly.
Our series on the origins of soccer in Philadelphia concludes.
Philadelphia’s tradition of Thanksgiving soccer continued with two big American Cup games and a game between two longstanding rivals.