When Brian Phillips, the mad genius behind The Run of Play, started writing an online novel about soccer in the United States in the 1920s, most soccer fans probably figured it was all just a pleasant little bit of World Cup-inspired fiction. As it turns out, though, there is a lot of truth in this buried bit of American soccer history, which Phillips uncovers in this must-read article for Slate.

In the 1920s, soccer was big in America. Not big in the way that baseball was big (this was the era of Ruth and Gehrig) or college football was big (these were the days when Ivy League rivalries played out as violent eruptions in the mud), but at its height, the top American soccer league had tens of thousands of fans, featured some of the world’s best players, and looked set to challenge the fledgling NFL in the competition to supply the nation with a post-October pastime. Along the way, this country’s early soccer entrepreneurs also managed to alienate the United States from the international soccer community, lay the groundwork for America’s greatest moment of World Cup glory, and generally create one of the most bizarre and fascinating might-have-beens in U.S. sports history.

Make with the clicky, people.