Victory

Director: John Huston (1981)

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, Pelé, Max Von Sydow

A very-underrated soccer movie from the early 1980’s could prove entertaining for fans of the sport to see footage of the greatest soccer star of all time doing his famous goal-scorring “Scissor Kick” in a WWII dramatic setting.

The head of a German POW camp, soccer enthusiast Karl von Steiner (Max von Sydow) organizes a match between Nazi players and their Allied captives. Orchestrated as a way to push the Third Reich agenda, the high-profile game is set to feature an international team led by John Colby (Michael Caine), a veteran British player. While the team, which also includes Luis Fernandez (Pelé) of Trinidad, trains for the match, Robert Hatch (Sylvester Stallone) plans a dangerous mass escape from the camp.

Two Hollywood Stalwarts, Producer Freddie Fields and legendary Director John Huston get together to tell this story.The smartest thing the producer did was to cast and give all the soccer choreography to the legendary Pelé. He was in the prime of his career as a player and scene he is in acting  or just playing soccer was a treat as well as a film record of all the great european soccer stars of the late 1960's and 70's.

Fun Fact: Coming off "Rocky 2,” Stallone lost 40 pounds to look more like a POW  than a boxer. A soccer fan since a little kid, Michael Caine said this was one favorite roles in his long career.