question: Why did the Hungarian football team face a death penalty? answer: They lost the match to German team paragraph: Spring 1944 . Nazi officers want to organize a football match for Hitler's birthday , in Which Germans would play against Hungarian prisoners of war . They call for the famous Hungarian footballer , n di , and order him to organize a team . n di accepts , but in turn demands extra food , a ball with Which he and his team can train before the match , and asks that they be allowed to concentrate on training before the match and not work . The Germans accept all the demands , but recommend n di not include any Jews in his team . However , n di ca n't organize the team only from his company , because only 8 out of 98 soldiers can play football . Therefore n di recruits players from the other company . One of the players is Steiner , who is a Jew and ca n't play football . He lied to n di because he was afraid to die . During training the footballers subdue the German corporal guarding them and try to escape . They are soon recaptured and told they will now face probable death penalty . However , the Germans order the Hungarian team to still play the match . At the beginning of the match n di and his team are discouraged , as the Germans easily score three goals . The Hungarians succeed in scoring one goal and the first half ends 3-1 in favor of Germany . At the interval the German commander tells the Hungarians that they might not be executed if they lose the match . The Hungarians refuse to believe this . At the beginning of the second half they score three goals . As a result , during the match , they are executed by the Germans . 