With the amount of simulation in the modern game, one would think that many footballers would do quite well as actors. But as the following list shows, very few have made the transition into film and the results, to be generous, have been mixed. From Pele to David Beckham, we profile some of the more memorable moments when footballers have featured on the silver screen.

By Ollie Irish

Photo: Aubrey Washington/EMPICS Sport

Jose Mourinho sits on the Barcelona bench with manager Bobby Robson, during a Spanish league match against Hercules CF in January 1997. Mourinho was Robson's assistant and interpreter.

When Louis van Gaal replaced Robson at Camp Nou, Mourinho was marginalised and forced out of the club.

Newcastle have been linked a number of times during last season in bringing former Newcastle center-back Andy O'Brien, back to Tyneside. Andy O'Brien - Newcastle player for 4 seasons from 2001 The great Bobby Robson signed Andy from Bradford City back in 2001, and Andy played over 120 times for Robson, before moving on to Portsmouth [.

Roy Hodgson's mission at Fulham went unfinished. His appointment as manager was Fulham onwer Mohammad Al-Fayed's step towards putting Fulham in the top four of modern English football lore, and Fulham nearly achieved it. Each season under Hodgson got better and better at Craven Cottage, with many players coming into his system and leaving more hardened to the English game.

By Ollie Irish

"We thought we would demolish this team England at Wembley, we are the masters, they are the pupils. It was absolutely the other way."

The late Bobby Robson on how badly England underestimated Hungary.

November 1953: Led by the great Ferenc Puskas, the Mighty Magyars so fluid, so ahead of their time gave stiff England an arch lesson in the perils of inflexibility.

"He cannot kick with his left foot, he cannot head a ball, he cannot tackle and he doesn't score many goals. Apart from that he's all right."
George Best's verdict on David Beckham.

"I'd have given my right arm to be a pianist."
Newcastle boss Bobby Robson when asked what would have been his dream job outside of football.

We have an unlikely hero at Newcastle this morning, whose personality is so much different from those other heroes at the club like Jackie Milburn, Malcolm MacDonald, Alan Shearer, Kevin Keegan and Bobby Robson. Chris Hughton - has calmed everything down on Tyneside 51 year-old Stratford, London-born Chris Hughton is an experienced coach, having spent 13 years [.

A sign of things to come...?
Eight Iconic Managers And Their Record After Ten Games Played
1. Jose Mourinho at Chelsea: W8 D2 L0
2. Bill Shankly at Liverpool: W6 D1 L3
3. Bobby Robson at Ipswich Town: W5 D4 L1
4. Arsene Wenger at Arsenal: W5 D3 L2
5. Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United: W4 D3 L3
6.

Chis Hughton has admitted that he often draws on the memory of the great Bobby Robson for inspiration, while he is managing Newcastle United. Bobby Robson with his statue in St. James' Park Chris ordered a life-sized canvas of Sir Bobby once he was appointed manager and the great man overlooks his office desk at the [.

I've grown tired of the naysayers, the detractors, the doubters and the downtrodden members of the English media and England fans over the last few days who have blindly and prematurely questioned Fabio Capello's initial 30 man World Cup squad.

After perusing the who's who of English media types and top journos, questionable words and phrases like "bold move", "maverick", "alarm", "gamble" and "compromised" are currently plastered over articles inciting fear in the hearts of England fans and bravery in the hearts of Americans, Algerians and Slovenians.

The late Bobby Robson saw incredible potential in what was then his interpreter at Barcelona. His interpreter, Jose Mourinho, followed him to Barcelona after working for Robson at Sporting Clube de Portugal and FC Porto. By this time Jose started to become more of an assistant and less of an interpreter.

The past had personality. Too much, at times. Before England's first game at Italia ‘90, Bobby Robson held a crisis meeting after several players sneaked out of the hotel for a drinking session, returned at 1.30am and Bryan Robson — the captain — injured his big toe trying, for reasons best known to himself, to overturn a bed.

James Milner will be in the Manchester City side tomorrow, and is now at Eastlands, after first leaving the Newcastle club for Aston Villa in August of 2008. James Milner - while at Newcastle James was signed from his home town club Leeds United by the great Bobby Robson, in the summer of 2004, and [.

France coach Laurent Blanc and Jose Mourinho, in charge of Real Madrid, used to spend hours talking football when the pair crossed paths at Barcelona during the 1996-97 season. Blanc was a player then, and Mourinho part of Bobby Robson's coaching staff (they were often joined by fellow players Gica Popescu, Luis Figo and, ironically, current Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola).

"La prensa, aunque no todos los periodistas, hace mi trabajo muy difícil."
"Cuando el Barcelona pierde dos partidos consecutivos, el entorno se mueve."
"José María Aznar no tiene conocimiento del fútbol profesional. No ha estudiado como entrenador y donde tiene que manejarse es en la política.

Earlier today, Newcastle United parted company with their manager Chris Hughton to begin the merry-go-round of speculation about who will be the new boss of the Tyneside club. It brings to an end the most stable period in Geordieland since Bobby Robson left the club so many years ago.

Bobby Robson dünya futboluna Jose Mourinho'yu hediye ettiyse Türk futboluna da Güvenç Kurtar'ı kazandırmıştır. Yayın ihalesi sonrası "süper" ligimize laf eden dimağlara cevap niyetindedir bu fotoğraf. Bobby Robson'ın bir öğrencisi Avrupa'yı sallarken ötekisi bizde çalıştıracak takım bulamıyor!

From Arrigo Sacchi's withdrawal of a legend to Bobby Robson's match-winning switch, here are half a dozen inspired changes.

ITV and BBC have carved up the World Cup matches between them, and have come to an interesting agreement. ITV will show England's opening two matches (as well as the opening match of the World Cup alltogether) in exchange for the first two knockout round matches (should England progress that far) which will be shown on BBC.

The Newcastle captain Nicky Butt, who was born in Gorton, Manchester, is reaching the end of a tremendous football career. Nicky Butt a good player and a good guy During that career, Nicky played for many years at one of the world's top clubs Manchester United, before Bobby Robson brought him to Tyneside in the summer [.

Former Newcastle Assistant manager to the great Bobby Robson, John Carver, is now Assistant manager at Plymouth and has talked today about Monday night's game against his former club. John Carver - Plymouth Assistant manager 45 year-old John Carver was born and bred in Newcastle and knows quite a few of the players currently in the Newcastle [.

La Liga leaders Barcelona will travel to Milan to take on Inter in the highly anticipated clash between two of the best teams left in the European competitions. The current champions Barca rely heavily on midfield schemer Xavi Hernandez and superstar Lionel Messi while Inter will be attempting to reach the final in Madrid to win their third title in the top European event.

Fabio Capello has built quite a reputation since he became England manager back in late 2007 after a disastrous Euro 2008 qualification campaign under the stewardship of "the Wally with the Brolly" , Steve McClaren. The Italian coach has turned a group of under-achieving players into a team many consider one of the favorites to take the trophy in South Africa.

Consistent reports are now emerging that Sir Alex Ferguson will announce his retirement at the end of the 2010-2011 season and this time they could be right on the money. "Could Be" has got to be...
Continue to the full story

Somebody needs to give Charles N'Zogbia the platform he deserves, be that in the league, Champions League, or at this year's World Cup. Roberto Martinez said recently he would not stand in the player's way if a big club came in for him. It's a wonder that no team has so far. It's also a wonder that the French National side haven't scooped him up, but guess what?

Maybe one of the games Newcastle played at their best this season was the game at Ipswich Town, which was played in the memory of the great Bobby Robson, and our players seemed so inspired. Chris Hughton the Ipswich game was very important Newcastle won that game 4-0 on September 26th, and it was televised live around [.

We ended Part I of England's World Cup history with the quarter-final defeat to West Germany at the 1970 World Cup. World Cup winning manager Alf Ramsey was fired after failing to qualify for the 1974 World Cup, and successor Don Revie jumped ship when it became clear England wouldn't qualify for thee 1978 tournament.

"There are half a dozen images that define [the 1990s] this decade of change ... First ... is the sight of Paul Gascoigne crying into his England shirt after being booked in the 1990 World Cup semi-final against West Germany. Unaggressive and emotional, a billboard image that helped start an apparently unstoppable surge in popularity for the national team.

Eski güzel günler. O zamanlar ne Telegol var ne de Ali Sami Alkış! Turgay Şeren& Ferenc Puskas ve Bobby Robson&Ziya Şengül...

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it. | Subscribe: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Congratulations to FC Twente in Holland, Marseille in France and Rangers in Scotland as they all win their domestic championships, while victories for Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Inter mean those clubs remain favourites to win their respective leagues.

The definitive book of the 1990 World Cup was All Played Out, the magnificent work by author Pete Davies who beautifully captured the spirit of the tournament and summed up the magical journey that England undertook against all odds and how they tragically fell at the last hurdle on the dreaded penalty kicks.

Before the season started we found ourselves in the unfortunate position of having to say goodbye to one of our greatest managers and one of the games all time greats, Sir Bobby Robson, who sadly lost his battle with Cancer back in July. The entire football world paid tribute to the man that had such an [.

Good news for the good ship Fulham in its voyage to dizzying never before glory. Bobby Zamora, the driving force in their Europa Cup campaign with 8 goals is likely to take the field. All indications are that he has recuperated very well from his Achilles tendon injury.

"He trained on Monday and that was very, very positive," said manager Roy Hodgson.

Next up in my series of modern classics involving Newcastle United is the trip to Elland Road, home of Leeds United, way back in December 2001. A total of seven goals were shared that night in a pulsating encounter with the table toppers, but we had the last laugh this time.. It's match that will be [.

What was planned to be an inspirational ad for the nation of England, kind of turns out to be a bit too exaggerated with a bit too many of the English faces involved. Now, I couldn't recognize all of them but here's the list of people featured in this ad from Guardian:

Stuart "Psycho" Pearce, Trevor Brooking, Steve Redgrave (literally draped in the flag shouting "Do us proud!

As club football enters hibernation for a short few months, there isn't really much to talk about regarding football matches until the World Cup rolls around in a few weeks. However, I have managed to latch onto some action from the under-18 team who have been away in Bosnia trying to defend their "Football Friends" title [.

Tommy Wright played 73 times for Newcastle United as their goalkeeper from 1988 until 1993, and then Tommy came back for Bobby Robson on emergency loan for a month in 1999 and played 3 more solid games for the Newcastle club. Chris Hughton - performed miracles at Newcastle last season Tommy was a Shamrock Rovers coach last [.

Part One. NUFC is one year old, and what a year it has been for Newcastle United! June of last year may have seemed like a strange time to start a 'blog about Newcastle United, a time when the club had just been relegated, but at least no-one could blame us for being 'glory hunters'! It all [...]

Every football fan has their own World Cup. The one they remember most fondly and still look back with a feeling of pure footballing nostalgia. For me, my earliest football memories full stop are of a World Cup, and the show piece of Italia 1990. Yes I know in hindsight 1990 is seen as a dull and defensive tournament with arguably the worst final in the history, but for me it was the birth of my football education.

The concept of England having a high level of expectation at the time of a World Cup finals is a comparatively recent one. As recently as 1990, most adults could remember their two successive failures to qualify for the whole event and, once there, they only seldom lit the tournament up. In 1982, a good performance in the opening match against France was followed by an almost linear deterioration in performance, which ended in their elimination in the second group round after two goalless draws against West Germany and Spain.