Football at the Inter-Allied Games

The venue was the newly constructed Stade Pershing in Paris, a gift to France from the American people. ==Squads==

According to the regulations, the athletes who could take part in the competitions were those in active military service in the armies of the Allied countries or who had been in military service in the armies of the Allied countries during the War, and a significant number of players of the highest level met these criteria, many of whom being players of the national teams, which means that this tournament featured some of Europe's top players. The Winning Forces of the First World War assembled football teams for this tournament, resulting in 8 participants: • : The American team was selected from among the participants in the American Expeditionary Forces Championship held the month before, which was contested by sections of the American Expeditionary Forces and won by the Le Mans by 80th Division. The U.S. army was willing to return soldiers who had already been demobilized back to the U.S. when they thought it gave them the best chance to win an event, but such a policy did not seem to apply to soccer and instead most of the returned athletes competed in track and field events. In contrast to this approach other nations turned out strong teams featuring some of the continent's top players. • : The Czechoslovak team was made up largely of players taken from the club Slavia Prague, the traditional champions of Czechoslovakia, and the Czech team that reached the gold medal match of the 1920 Olympics (which they lost 2–0 to hosts, Belgium) included thirteen players from the Inter-Allied roster, the most of any nation that competed in both tournaments. The top star of the side being forward Antonín Janda, who was the tournament's shared top goal scorer with 7 goals. Others top Czech players who appeared in both the Inter-Allied games and the Olympics were Defender Antonín Hojer and midfielder Václav Pilát. • : The Romania football team at the Games was drawn almost exclusively from Bucharest clubs, such as Tricolor, Venus, and Coltea, and no ethnic Hungarians were involved; it did, however, include two foreigners, the German Rudolf Schmetau and the Englishman Ernest Hillard. In goal for Romania was the 22-year-old Constantin Rădulescu, who would later select and/or coach the Romanian national team at the first three World Cups, and would be a prime mover in the establishment of the Romanian Football Federation (FRF) in 1923 and the divisional league system (Alexandru Săvulescu, who would later be on the staff with Rădulescu at two World Cups, was also a member of this team). ==Format==

The 8 teams were organized into two groups of four. Each team played each other once and each team was awarded 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw, and 0 for a loss, and the winners of the groups would meet in the final, where the winner of the tournament would be determined. ==Summary==

Group A contained France, Italy, Greece, and Romania while the other consisted of the United States, Canada, Czechoslovakia, and Belgium. In Group A, both France and Italy defeated Greece and Romania comfortably, meaning that the ticket to the final would be decided between them in the last match of the group. As a result, the US team celebrated a 5–4 victory. Janda, by his aggressiveness and good sportsmanship, became one of the most popular players of the tournament, but besides the wonderful work of Janda, the shifty playing of Václav Pilát at the center was also a big factor in the eventual 3–2 victory. Of all the team competitions organized in the Inter-Allied Games, football was the most successful. ==Results==

Group 1 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Group 2 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ==Final==