Rewatchables Reference

• Winner: Pelé getting hurt through the first Allies counterattack goal – Stallone gets kicked in the head, everything goes blurry, the counterattack builds, the cross, the music crescendo, the crowd erupting.
• The Colby/Von Steiner negotiation scenes.
• Pelé grabbing the chalk to draw up the play – 'Give me the ball here, I do this, this, this – goal. Easy.'
• The halftime tunnel scene where Pelé says 'Please, Hatch... if we run now, we lose more than a game'.
• The Pelé bicycle kick.
• The penalty kick save and the crowd-rush escape ending.

• Winner: Bill Conti's score – Bill says it might be his number one sports movie music, over 'Rocky'.
• The crowd singing the French national anthem during the penalty kick sequence.
• The widescreen/HD presentation – top five 'thank God for HD and widescreen' movie.
• The 'good Nazi' (Von Steiner) concept – loves soccer more than the war, genuinely disappointed by the corrupt officiating.
• Beating Nazis at anything.
• Stallone ending the Cold War AND beating the Nazis in two different sports movies within five years.

• Pelé's bald patch on the back of his head – visible in several shots.
• Michael Caine as a soccer player – couldn't even run 20 yards, all football scenes used a stunt double.
• Hatch's 13-minute escape to Paris – the French girlfriend subplot feels like it was dropped in from the wrong movie.
• No real scrimmage/practice scene despite having all those professional soccer players – should have cut the Paris minutes and added a training montage.
• Pelé holding his ribs and then jumping up celebrating after the bicycle kick – he supposedly had seven broken ribs.

• Roger Moore was considered for the John Colby role.
• Lloyd Bridges and Clint Eastwood were circling the project.
• Clint Eastwood as Hatch would have been a completely different, cooler movie – no comic relief, he looks more like a goalkeeper.

Winner: Maurice Roeves, the Scottish officer – goes on to get his beating heart cut out by Magua in Last of the Mohicans.

Winner: Sylvester Stallone – chasing Michael Caine around the camp yelling 'I don't even want to play on the stinking team!' Bill: 'This isn't Paradise Alley. John Huston is the director.'

• Nominees: Pelé, Ossie Ardiles, Anton Diffring, Werner Roth.
• Pelé initially discussed but removed as too important for the category.
• Winner: Anton Diffring (the German announcer).

Replace Carole Laure (the French girlfriend) with Jacqueline Bisset – a 13-minute Jackie Bisset cameo would make the Paris detour worth watching.

• Gordon Banks (1966 England goalkeeper) was Stallone's goalkeeping coach.
• Pelé's character is from Trinidad because Brazil didn't join the war until 1943 and the movie is set in 1941.
• Stallone lost 40 pounds to look like a prisoner of war – this is why he looks so lean in 'Rocky III'.
• Ardiles was a 1978 World Cup winner for Argentina – said this was his 'greatest ever sporting moment'.
• Stallone separated a shoulder and broke a finger, kept filming.
• John Wark told the story that Stallone wanted to score the winning goal – the cast intervened.
• It took Stallone six takes before he could get even near saving a penalty kick.

• Ipswich Town: Yes – had some trophies but really reaped the rewards of this movie.
• Good Nazis (Von Steiner): Yes – Bill goes with Max von Sydow's Von Steiner.
• The word 'bloody': Chris nominates it – Michael Caine says 'bloody' like Wolf of Wall Street says another word.
• Stallone: No ('Rocky'/Rambo era is his apex).
• Pelé: No.
• Michael Caine: No.

• Hatch agrees to get recaptured after escaping – he's out, free in France, met a girl, doesn't know these guys well, can't play the sport.
• The Irish goalie agrees to have his arm broken – the #1 sports movie nitpick ever. Why not fake an injury? And then the team stays to play instead of escaping, so his arm was broken for nothing.
• Down 4-0, down a man, and they score the next 4 unanswered goals. Stallone throws a shutout for 75 minutes while concussed.
• Stallone catches the penalty kick rather than deflecting it – penalty kicks are almost never caught.
• The bicycle kick with seven broken ribs – then the team jumps on Pelé in celebration.
• The soldiers would have started shooting everyone during the crowd-rush escape.

• All agree: yes, please.
• Bill's pitch: Change the sport to basketball, keep the World War premise but make it World War Three – 'Red Dawn meets Hoosiers'.

• How fast did Von Steiner (the good Nazi) get murdered after the game?
• Did Hatch play more goalie after the war? Did he popularize soccer in America?
• Is this the #1 fictional sports movie event you'd want to attend?

• Bill: The Pelé game-worn jersey.
• Chris: The radio/crowd noise device.
• Gus: The signed arm cast from the Irish goalie.

• Winner: Pelé (2-1 vote) – this became his enduring legacy for American audiences, made soccer seem cool, the bicycle kick lived on for 40 years.
• Michael Caine got one vote – showed he could act under any circumstances.