World Cup 2026 co-hosts the United States are not considered among the most prominent nations in football history. But an underappreciated aspect of their World Cup story is the fact they competed in the inaugural tournament, way back in 1930, when many of football’s traditional powers declined to enter.Moreover, FIFA lists them as having finished third in that tournament, meaning their best-ever World Cup finish is better than that of Denmark, Russia, Morocco, Colombia and — most pertinently here — Yugoslavia. In fact, it’s the best result ever recorded by a side from outside Europe and South America.But did they really finish third? Working this out is somewhat more complex than you might expect.The delightfully old-school website Planet World Cup shows a good example of the confusion. It states that “there was no bronze match at that time, so the USA and Yugoslavia shared the third place”. But then it lists the retrospective FIFA ranking, showing the USA in third place. So how has this happened?What we can be sure about is that World Cup 1930 was the only edition of the tournament, men’s or women’s, where a third-place play-off was not held. That’s not necessarily surprising in itself; it’s debatable whether that match brings much to the competition, and it’s reasonable to suspect that the organisers of the tournament in Uruguay 96 years ago simply didn’t think it was worthwhile.On the other hand, the World Cup was essentially invented as a professional version of the amateur-only Olympic tournament, which was highly prestigious during the 1920s. With a bronze medal to be awarded, the Olympics always had a third-place play-off. You would expect the World Cup to follow suit.The first-ever World Cup final between Argentina and Uruguay in 1930 (Keystone/Getty Images)The question, then, is why no third-place play-off was held. And this is where things become difficult. The match would have been played between the United States and Yugoslavia, who lost 6-1 in the semi-finals to Argentina and Uruguay respectively, both in somewhat unpleasant fashion. The U.S. lost multiple players to injury in their semi and, in an era before substitutes were permitted, were inevitably beaten. Yugoslavia’s problem was with the officiating, which they deemed heavily biased towards the home side, with their biggest issue involving the third goal.“After (Uruguay’s) Santos Iriarte had chased a seemingly hopeless cause, a watching policeman kicked the ball back onto the field of play,” wrote Rob Fielder in his book, The Complete History of the World Cup. “Referee Almeida Rego again failed to notice that the ball had gone out and allowed Iriarte to cross for Pablo Dorado, who set up Peregrino Anselmo to score. The referee would later claim that his view had been blocked, but he allowed one of the most farcical goals in World Cup history to stand.”