Prior to Bend It Like Beckham, Keira had made small appearances in TV shows and was Natalie Portman’s double for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. But her first time in a major supporting role was in Bend It Like Beckham. Later that year, Pirates of the Caribbean and Love Actually came out, and Keira became a household name. “I think the great thing about Bend It Like Beckham was that it managed to be amazingly optimistic … and I’d love to find that again,” Keira told The Guardian. Here she is at the premiere, NBD.

Sure, David Beckham’s name is in the title, but writer and director Gurinder Chadha based it off of Ian Wright’s success as a Black footballer in England, specifically wearing the Union Jack at the Euro 96 championship. “It was an extremely provocative sight, a sign things were changing,” Gurinder told TIFF.

If Keira and Parminder look like naturals on the pitch, it’s because they are. Director and writer Gurinder Chadha put the actresses through three months of training in which they sustained concussions and broken toes. “It’s only when I said, ‘We could always use doubles, don’t worry about it,’ when the two of them said, ‘No way! We’re definitely are going to go for it.’ And they did,” Gurinder told BlackFilm at the time. The dedication is real.

Soccer trainer Simon Clifford worked with the women. By the end of training, he said Keira “could do things some Premier League players can’t do. I taught her moves I’ve worked on with Michael Owen, and he found some of them harder to master than she did. If I’d trained her from the age of 10 or 11, without a shadow of a doubt Keira could have been a pro.” I want to go to that alternate universe.

Parminder won FIFA’s Presidential Award because “the film deals with issues of cultural conformity and serves superbly to bring women’s football into the spotlight as a game for all women of all cultures,” according to FIFA. She was the first woman to receive the award, and she beat the likes of Luís Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo.

The one exception: All Saints singer Shaznay Lewis. Because everyone was capable of actually playing soccer, it made for interesting on-set dynamics. “We literally had become a really solid team,” Parminder told USA Today. “We got so into it once that Gurinder stormed across the pitch, shouting, ‘Cut! Cut! Have you forgotten this is a movie?'”

When using a living person’s name in the title of a film, you obvi have to get approval—unless you’re asking to get sued. According to Gurinder, it was an easy yes from Becks: “When we first approached David Beckham, he said, ‘I wholeheartedly support this because I support girls’ football and want families to come to matches.'” As if he couldn’t get any hotter 😍

“Bending” the ball was still a pretty new thing when the movie came out and hadn’t made its way to the U.S. yet. Plus, U.S. distributors worried people wouldn’t recognize David Beckham’s name. They considered changing the title to Move It Like Mia, as in Mia Hamm, but decided against it.

For similar reasons, the title was changed in Germany to Kick It Like Beckham. Yeah, it just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

If soccer isn’t your thing, bending the ball is when a player kicks the ball to create a curve that can get around a wall of defenders. Yes, there are some physics involved, specifically the Magnus Effect.

Becks put bending on the map during a 1996 Manchester United match against Wimbledon. His ability to do it consistently made him a standout player.

And, yes, he loves to play along with the movie’s title. I mean, the man literally made a video with People magazine where he bends things. It seems like years later he’s still proud to be associated with the movie.

It’s also about how women have to navigate society, Gurinder said. “I think it is a great metaphor for a lot of us, especially girls. We can see our goal but instead of going straight there, we too have to twist and bend the rules sometimes to get what we want.” Preach!

What, did you think Posh Spice was going to sit idly by when her husband’s name is in the title? Nope. She lent her 2001 song “I Wish” to the soundtrack.

The movie centers around the fact that Jules and Jess want to go to America and play in the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA). Unfortunately, that wouldn’t have happened for them IRL, because the WUSA folded seven weeks after the film was released in the United States.

Jess sports a number 7 on the pitch, which is the same one Becks wore for Manchester United.

As for Jules, her jersey number 9 comes from American player Mia Hamm—which makes sense considering Jules’ room is practically a shrine to the soccer player.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ character was supposed to be English in the film, but he improvised his “I’m Irish. Of course I understand what it feels like” line in screen testing. Thus, Joe was made Irish.

The actor was at first opposed to being in it, calling it a “girly” movie. He even tried to hide that he was cast for as long as he could. “I thought it was going to be terrible!” he told Marie Claire. “For months and months and months, I refused to tell anybody that I’d been in a film called Bend It Like Beckham. Even in the beginning I was like, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ But I spoke to my brother and he said, ‘Do the film. Everybody’s going to love this.'”

You’d think someone who writes and directs a film about soccer would know, oh I don’t know, a lot about the sport. That wasn’t the case for Gurinder. She relied on her co-writers to fill in the blanks when she wrote “jargon jargon football jargon” in the drafts. Not all heroes wear capes!

Much of the immigrant experience documented in the film was inspired by Gurinder’s father, who died before the movie was released. She pays homage to his generation, “who came here and bedded in and struggled so that their kids could have the opportunities we did.”

The writer/director loves to make cameos in her own films. In Bend It Like Beckham, she’s one of the women Jess and Jules jog past in the park, and she’s dressed in pink during the conga line at the wedding.

Jonathan was very wrong when he thought it would flop. Bend It Like Beckham‘s budget was $6 million, and it made $76 million at the box office.

In 2015, Bend It Like Beckham was turned into a West End musical. Actor Jamie Campbell Bower portrayed Joe in the stage version. It premiered in June 2015 and ran for less than a year before it shuttered.