• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
US Soccer Players

US Soccer Players

The official site of the USMNT Soccer Players with soccer news, schedule, statistics, players, interviews, and exclusive stories.

  • Home
  • Players
  • Games
  • News
  • Guides
  • USNSTPA
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Forward

Ruben Mendoza

5'9"

The biography of USMNT soccer player Ruben Mendoza who played on two USA Olympic soccer teams in 1952 and 1956.
Caps: 4 | Goals: 2

A force in St Louis soccer in the 1950s, USMNT player Ruben Mendoza played with Zenthorfer Furs and Raiders before selling with Kutis. He won the St Louis soccer league championship six times in 10 seasons, earning four US National Team call-ups. Predating the current rise of players with a Mexican soccer background, Ruben spent part of his childhood in Durango, learning a style of soccer that translated successfully to the fields of St Louis when his family returned to the city when Ruben was 16.

Ruben was a member of the US Olympic soccer team that participated in the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 and the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.

Mendoza won his first senior National Team cap in a World Cup Qualifier against Haiti in Port au Prince in 1954, scoring on his debut in a 3-0 USA win. On Apr 28, 1957 he was in the lineup against Mexico in a World Cup Qualifier in Long Beach, a 7-2 loss for the United States. Two months later he played against Canada in Toronto, with the US losing 5-1 in World Cup Qualifying. The US played Canada again a month later, losing in Mendoza’s hometown of St Louis 3-2 with Mendoza scoring his second goal in a US shirt. His four caps and two goals came over a period where the US only played six times, almost exclusively World Cup qualifiers.

Following his playing career, Mendoza was the long-term coach in Granite City, Illinois. He died on Apr 11, 2010.

More Ruben Mendoza news

Rosters
Results
FIFA Rankings
Alumni

USMNT News
USMNT Players in MLS
USMNT Players Abroad

About US Soccer Players
Privacy Policy
Contact Us
Sponsorship and Licensing

  

© 2025 USNSTPA • Contact • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved - USNSTPA

This website stores data such as cookies for analytics and essential functionality.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in .

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. We do not sell any data we get using cookies – we simply store cookie information in your browser to perform functions such as recognizing you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We use browser local storage to hide the homepage background image on repeated visits to make it easier to see new content.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

3rd Party Cookies

This website uses StatCounter to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!