The film received great attention upon its theatrical release, as it starred professional footballers Bobby Moore, Osvaldo Ardiles, Kazimierz Deyna, Paul Van Himst, Mike Summerbee, Hallvar Thoresen, Werner Roth and Pelé.

Numerous Ipswich Town players were also in the film, including John Wark, Russell Osman, Laurie Sivell, Robin Turner and Kevin O'Callaghan.

Other Ipswich Town players stood in for actors in the football scenes – Kevin Beattie for Michael Caine, and Paul Cooper for Sylvester Stallone.

They convince Hatch to let himself be recaptured so that he can pass this information back to the leading British officers at the prison camp.

Colby himself actually has to break the starting goalkeeper's arm because the Germans want proof of the injury before they will allow Hatch to join the Allied lineup.

Sports Illustrated magazine said "the game is marvelously photographed by Gerry Fisher, under second unit director Robert Riger.

Since the movie is set in the early years of the German occupation of France (post August 1942 as reference is made to being ‘captured at Dieppe’), Pelé's character, Corporal Luis Fernandez, is identified as being from Trinidad, not Brazil, since Brazilians did not officially join the war against the Axis powers until late August 1942, with the first contingents of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force arriving in Italy in July, 1944.

camp scenes were filmed in a field in Fót, approximately 13 kilometers northeast from Budapest, situated behind the Mafilm Studios.

Other Budapest locations in the film included Keleti Railway Station, the historic Metro Line 1, and soundstages at Mafilm's main studio complex in the 14th district.

[15] American composer Bill Conti wrote the score, which borrows heavily from the first and last movements of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No.

7 was purportedly meant to represent the resistance to repressive Nazism when it debuted during World War II, he privately commented that it was a musical criticism of all tyranny and oppression, including in his native Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.

[20] In June 2014, it was announced that Doug Liman was in talks to direct a remake with Gavin O'Connor and Anthony Tambakis writing the script.

[22] The whole audio recording of the second half of the match played in the film has been broadcast from a radio inside the Italian Pavilion of the 59° Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte La Biennale di Venezia, made by Gian Maria Tosatti and curated by Eugenio Viola.