Joseph Edouard Gaetjens (/ˈɡeɪdʒɛnz/ GAY-jenz;[1] March 19, 1924 – July 10, 1964 [presumed]) was a soccer player who played as a center forward.
He then moved to the American Soccer League (ASL) and led all players with 18 goals in 15 games for New York's Brookhattan during the 1949–50 season.
His great-grandfather Thomas, was a native of Bremen, in northern Germany, who supposedly had been sent to Haiti by Frederick William III, the King of Prussia, as a business emissary arriving shortly after 1825; although the validity for this claim is uncertain by family members.
[2][3] He married Leonie Déjoie, whose father was a general in a time where Haiti's independence was officially recognized by France.
[6] Gaetjens went to New York City in 1947 to study accounting at Columbia University on a scholarship from the Haitian government and concluded that he could not make a living from professional soccer in Haiti.
[14] His success with Brookhattan attracted the attention of U.S. Soccer, and Gaetjens made the national team for the 1950 World Cup.
Williams later considered the goal to be a result of a lucky deflection, but this view was disputed by Laurie Hughes, who was defending Gaetjens on the play.
He was related to Louis Déjoie (his great-grandfather Thomas married Leonie Déjoie), who lost the 1957 Haitian presidential election to François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, and although the family also had connections to the new president, Gaetjens's younger brothers Jean-Pierre and Fred became associated with a group of exiles in the Dominican Republic who wanted to stage a coup.
That morning, he was arrested by the secret police—the Tonton Macoutes—and was taken to a prison called Fort Dimanche notorious for its brutally inhumane practices,[3] where it is presumed he was killed some time later that month.
[citation needed] In 1972, Gaetjens was honored in a benefit game involving the New York Cosmos and a team composed of local Haitians at Yankee Stadium.
[2] The jersey number worn by Gaetjens during the 1950 World Cup match against England remains unknown, with several accounts from family members and historians unable to verify various claims.
"[3] When Gaetjens first arrived in the US from Haiti, he was mistaken for Belgian of the Flemish-speaking part of the country, due to the sounding of his surname ending in -tjens and the fact that migration in waves from Belgium were common during the 19th century.