Before he became the man associated with the 2026 USA World Cup, Mr Trump was turning out for the bottom-of-the-league school soccer team for New York Military Academy.
A little-known aspect of President Donald Trump’s sporting career has been highlighted again as he looks set to play a leading role in this summer’s 2026 FIFA World Cup, alongside FIFA president Gianni Infantino. Trump, the first president to be labelled as the “soccer president” thanks to his first term’s efforts in securing the rights for the event, is no stranger to the sport.
In 1963, however, Mr Trump was still the shy student-defender trying to cement his position at a New York military academy located on the Hudson River Valley. Evidence has emerged, via historical records and yearbooks of the school, that showed him taking on the position of full-back in the school’s soccer team for the final year after being injured during an American football match.
Claims of being undefeated by teammate, Peter Ticktin, have recently been countered by archived reports that New York Military Academy actually lost 8 of their 11 matches during the 1963 soccer season, with their final record ending on a miserable 3-8. Trump himself was described by former teammates as a reasonable player and someone who was coachable and learned the sport quickly despite being largely unfamiliar with soccer.
The team at NYMA represented the very diverse makeup of the school in the early sixties, with a lot of the team coming from military families located in South and Central America. In Trump’s team were players from Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Peru and Argentina.
Past classmates remember indications of his large ego in the past, claiming that Mr Trump was competitive and argumentative and looking to present an argument favourably.
Many years later, President Trump is clearly a different man, and his association with soccer has moved on since then; he has welcomed stars such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney to the White House in the past, and he is currently still extremely close to FIFA management ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
