If you have ever wondered just how much of a star Landon Donovan is in Mexico, consider that he's now starring in his own Mexican lottery commercial.

Here is one of the funniest soccer-themed commercials you'll ever see (especially if you're a USA fan who speaks Spanish):

For the Spanish-deficient, the premise of the commercial is that Donovan is sneaking into Mexico to play the Mexican lottery because it's easier to win.

Footballers go on the pitch expecting to win and they expend every effort in that pursuit. Sometimes it works and they're heroes. Sometimes they lose and they're zeroes. History will record that, for today at least, Persija will be zeroes and Persik the heroes.
Persija started in shocking fashion and it was no surprise they went 1-0 down so early.

As part of the this week's launch of the Spain World Cup 2010 away kit, adidas has produced a hidden camera video featuring La Roja players Xabi Alonso, David Villa, David Silva and Álvaro Arbeloa acting as sportswear "vendedores por un día" (salesmen for a day). Shot at the adidas stores at the Bernabéu in [.

On Friday, the first match whistles will blow, and Jon Stewart has planned to get World Cup fans prepped with a little comedy hours before.
World Cup 2010: Into Africa is a multi-part presentation that will showcase Daily Show correspondent John Oliver poking fun at the U.

By Chris Wright

Here's UK soccer captain and little Red Devils star Rio/Raul Ferdinand giving his acting #silks a workout in this fairly amusing spoof infomercial for the all-new 'SoccerXizer Pro' sadly, there isn't a yogic bear in sight...

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This looks like an ad for D&G don't you think?! Seriously, what is Palle d'oro even doing on the pitch? All of us already have nightmares of Luca Toni with his new number 30 shirt and now GoldenBalls has returned to wreak havoc on the city of Milan.

If you have ever wondered just how much of a star Landon Donovan is in Mexico, consider that he's now starring in his own Mexican lottery commercial.

Here is one of the funniest soccer-themed commercials you'll ever see (especially if you're a USA fan who speaks Spanish):

For the Spanish-deficient, the premise of the commercial is that Donovan is sneaking into Mexico to play the Mexican lottery because it's easier to win.

A former derelict church - in one of Southend's most picturesque areas - has been given a completely new lease of life thanks to major redevelopment.
The grade II listed Clifftown United Reform Church on Nelson Street, has been transformed into an impressive facility for the East 15 Acting School & University of Essex - including teaching, training, rehearsal and performance space.

This is a story of life and death. And acting. And celebration. It is the story of a club from the Russian Premier League side FC Moscow which has gone bust just a short while after their oligarch owner, a man in the Roman Abramovich league, pulled out, having decided to switch sports. And it is the [.

On a day when the Blaugrana were back to their flowing best, Busquets was all hands and a handshake. Take a look at this man's gamesmanship.

He was to be substituted by Yaya Toure and dilly dallied getting off the field. He went up to referee Teixeira Vitienes to shake his hand for which he received his second yellow card for time wasting.

I'm not sure of the provenance of this particular video (sent to me by Julia Gaffield), but it does wonderfully capture one side of football: the glory of dramatic acting, for the benefit of referees, though in this case the guy obviously needs a bit more practice from our more accomplished and more highly-paid footballing professionals.

The U.S. team departed Washington Dulles at around 5:40 p.m. ET on Sunday, flew to Dakar, Senegal, for a brief one-hour stop-over and then boarded a plane to South Africa, touching down in the host country for the 2010 FIFA World Cup at around 4:45 p.m. on Monday. The team boarded a bus for its base camp outside of Pretoria and arrived at the hotel to wonderful greeting from the hotel staff, who put on a brief show of traditional singing and dancing, served the team cold beverages and fresh fruits, and handed out hot towels.

With the start of the 2010 FIFA World Cup close at hand, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart senior foreign sports correspondent John Oliver is preparing to cover the World Cup in Africa in a series titled..."World Cup 2010: Into Africa."

In the first piece, Oliver embeds with the U.S. Soccer team as they train for their highly anticipated game against England.

It's important to have an aggressive defender eager to steal the ball or make that critical tackle when needed, but if the manager gives the nod to the wrong man for the job then it might just cost your country a chance at hoisting the Cup.

In fact this World Cup following the first 34 matches, only 6 experienced a player receiving the deadly straight red card.

Anna Falchi is an Italian-Finish model who dated Matteo Ferrari's (Genoa) ex-girlfriend.

While things have ended with Ferrari, Falchi is better well-known for her modeling and a little acting. She has appeared in not-so-hit films like Cemetary Man (Sounds like a real nail-biter) and On the Dark Continent.

Dimitar Berbatov has used the platform he has been given from scoring three goals against Liverpool to promote his charity. He created Dimitar Berbatov Foundation in 2008 but this wasn't the start of his charity. In 2001 he saved the life of a sick Bulgarian girl by paying for her liver transplant and actively helps Unicef.

Oft accused of play-acting and theatrics, Real Madrid appeared to fall a long way short of their own 'high' standards against Ajax last night. For once, Cristiano Ronaldo was not at the heart of the action, instead, the central characters were Sergio Ramos and Xabi Alonso, both of whom managed to pick up red cards in the dying stages of the match for time-wasting.