Sylvester Stallone and Pele during filming of Escape to Victory.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The relationship between football and film is a complicated one.
While there have been many outstanding football documentaries over the years, there are relatively few films worth watching about the beautiful game.
But that hasn’t stopped plenty from trying to take football to the big screen, nor has it deterred players from having a go at acting – with varying degrees of success.
From cheesy cameos to proper Hollywood roles, a look at the footballers who have appeared in films over the years…
32. Tony Cottee
Tony Cottee speaks to fans ahead of Wales versus England at the 2022 World Cup. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Tony Cottee played as a striker for the likes of West Ham, Everton and Leicester City in a successful career. He also won seven caps for England.
Cottee made a cameo appearance in the 2018 action film Final Score. In a bizarre scene, he and former Fulham and QPR defender Rufus Brevett are shot dead in a live television broadcast.
31. Iker Casillas
Iker Casillas celebrates Spain’s third goal, scored by Fernando Torres, in the Euro 2012 final against Italy. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Iker Casillas captained Spain to back-to-back European Championship crowns and a World Cup triumph, as well as winning numerous trophies at Real Madrid.
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The former goalkeeper, who retired after a spell at Porto and some time out after suffering a heart attack, has appeared in a couple of films. In Goal II: Living the Dream, Casillas saves a penalty for Real Madrid against Arsenal in a key Champions League clash. He also had a cameo in Spanish film Torrente 3: El protector, along with Guti, Ivan Helguera, Luis Figo and Fernando Torres.
30. Ronaldinho
Ronaldinho celebrates a goal for Barcelona against Athletic Club in 2006. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Ronaldinho had a colourful career, with plenty of fun on and off the pitch, and his life might make for a fun film one day.
The brilliant Brazilian has also appeared in a film himself. He was in Kickboxer: Retaliation, a martial arts movie which also features Jean-Claude van Damme.
29. Andres Iniesta
Andres Iniesta celebrates after scoring for Barcelona against Real Madrid in 2014. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Andres Iniesta won it all with Barcelona and Spain in a glorious era, but the midfielder always looked to shun the limelight off the pitch.
So it was somewhat surprising that the World Cup winner agreed to play a small part in the Spanish comedy ¿Quién mató a Bambi? (“Who killed Bambi?”) in 2013. Iniesta played himself in the comedy thriller, which is an adaptation of Mexican film Matando Cabos.
28. Carlos Valderrama
Carlos Valderrama in action for Colombia at the 1998 World Cup. (Image credit: Getty Images)
One of Colombia’s greatest and most emblematic players, Carlos Valderrama won over 100 caps for his country and appeared in three World Cups.
He also appeared in a comedy film entitled Por un puñado de pelos (“By a handful of hairs”), playing the role of town mayor in the 2014 production. It sounds fun, but the reviews are not favourable.
27. Gary Lineker
Gary Lineker celebrates after his hat-trick for England against Poland at the 1986 World Cup. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Gary Lineker is one of England’s best-ever strikers and after his retirement from football, the former Barcelona, Tottenham and Leicester forward began a successful career as a presenter.
Lineker had been fronting Match of the Day for a few years by the time Bend it like Beckham came out. The film starts with a silly scene in which Lineker, Alan Hansen and John Barnes wax lyrical about Jesminder “Jess” Bhamra in a fantasy sequence which sets the tone for what follows. It’s a fun film, but Lineker admits he probably “over-acted a bit” after watching it back.
26. Omar Sivori
Omar Sivori in action for Juventus in 1960/61. (Image credit: Alamy)
One of the great players of the 1950s and 1960s, Omar Sivori played for Argentina and Italy at international level and for River Plate, Juventus and Napoli in his club career.
In 1970, Sivori played himself in an Italian comedy film entitled Il presidente del Borgorosso Football Club, just a year after retiring from football.
25. John Carew
John Carew at Aston Villa. (Image credit: Getty Images)
John Carew won 91 caps for Norway between 1998 and 2011 and played for the likes of Valencia, Roma, Aston Villa and Lyon in a successful career.
After retiring from football, the striker appeared in a couple of Norwegian films – Hodvinger in 2014 and Maleficent in 2019. He also starred in a series entitled Heimebane in 2018.
24. George Best
George Best at Manchester United. (Image credit: Getty Images)
George Best was one of football’s great talents and also one of the sport’s first big celebrities off the pitch, known for his partying and womanising in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1971, Best played himself in Percy, a film about a man who has the first ever penis transplant following a freak accident and becomes a womaniser after receiving a very large organ. The Kinks feature on the soundtrack.
23. Raul
Raul celebrates after scoring for Real Madrid against AC Milan in the Champions League in March 2003. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Raul Gonzalez is one of Spain’s best-ever players and a three-time Champions League winner at Real Madrid, where he was top scorer until he was overtaken by Cristiano Ronaldo and later Karim Benzema.
The former Madrid and Spain skipper makes a brief appearance in Goal II: Living the Dream, alongside former Real team-mates including Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham and Iker Casillas.
22. Zico
Zico in action for Brazil against Italy at the 1982 World Cup. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Zico was a key part of Brazil’s memorable 1982 World Cup side. He is also a legend at Flamengo and was nicknamed “the white Pele” in his playing days.
In 1998, the former attacker starred in a film for kids entitled Uma Aventura do Zico. It was panned by critics, bombed at the box office and was reportedly watched by only 36,727 people in cinemas across Brazil.
21. Sergio Ramos
Sergio Ramos kisses the European Championship trophy after Spain’s win at Euro 2012. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Sergio Ramos has won it all at club and international level with Spain and Real Madrid and will go down as one the greatest defenders of all time.
In 2011, the centre-back took a break from football to appear in Torrente 4: Lethal Crisis, playing a Real Madrid employee in a film featuring various cameos from footballers – with Cesc Fabregas, Gonzalo Higuain, Sergio Aguero and Alvaro Arbeloa also involved.
20. Diego Maradona
Diego Maradona celebrates after scoring for Argentina against England in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Diego Maradona was one of the greatest footballers of all time and one of the game’s most fascinating characters as well.
Maradona featured in a number of documentaries about his life and early in his career, he made a cameo appearance as himself in Argentine film ¡Qué linda es mi familia! The production, a musical-comedy, was hit by tragedy as main star Luis Sandrini collapsed and died during a photo session on the final day of filming. Maradona also appeared in Italian film Tifosi, as himself again, in 1999.
19. Laszlo Kubala
The statue of legendary Hungarian forward László Kubala outside Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium, pictured in 2012. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Legend has it that such was the demand to watch Laszlo Kubala at Barcelona in the 1950s that the Catalan club decided to leave Les Corts and build the Camp Nou.
The Hungarian forward spent a decade at Barça, scoring 194 goals for the club, and has a statue outside the stadium. In 1955, he starred in a film telling the story of how he fled Hungary. “Football player Kubala is pressed by Hungarian agents to become a spy,” reads the description of Los Ases buscan la paz. “He finally finds a home in Barcelona.” It sounds quite good, but the reviews say otherwise.
18. Paul Breitner
West Germany’s Paul Breitner is challenged by Italy’s Marco Tardelli in the 1982 World Cup final. (Image credit: Getty Images)
A World Cup winner with West Germany in 1974 and a runner-up in 1982, Paul Breitner won the Bundesliga five times at Bayern Munich and two La Liga titles at Real Madrid.
After Germany’s World Cup win, the midfielder was asked to appear in a German Western movie named Potato Fritz in 1975 and was praised by director Peter Schamoni for his acting skills. After retirement, he also appeared in German film Kunyonga – Mord in Afrika.
17. Alfredo Di Stefano
Alfredo Di Stefano on the ball for Real Madrid in a game against Espanyol in 1956. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Alfredo Di Stefano changed Real Madrid’s history with his arrival at the Spanish side in 1953 and the Argentine was perhaps the first footballer who was also a global star off the pitch.
Some of his commitments upset Madrid, with the club believing at the time that he should concentrate on his football. A few years before he joined Real, Di Stefano starred in Argentine comedy film Con los mismos colores, which was about three boys from a poor neighbourhood who found fame as footballers.
16. Osvaldo Ardiles
Osvaldo Ardiles in action for Argentina against Brazil at the 1982 World Cup. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Osvaldo Ardiles, better known as Ossie by English football fans, won the World Cup with Argentina in 1978 and the hearts of Tottenham fans in a long spell at White Hart Lane.
Ardiles is one of three World Cup winners to appear in the 1981 film Escape to Victory, along with Pele and Bobby Moore. Plus Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone, of course.
15. Alan Shearer
Alan Shearer celebrates a goal for Newcastle United against Dynamo Kyiv in the Champions League in October 2002. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Alan Shearer retired as the Premier League’s all-time top scorer, a Newcastle United legend and one of England’s best-ever strikers. He has also appeared in a film.
Shearer had a brief cameo in Goal! The Dream Begins in 2006, alongside a number of other famous former players. As you might expect, he wasn’t a natural.
14. Bobby Moore
England captain Bobby Moore celebrates with his team-mates and the Jules Rimet trophy after the Three Lions’ World Cup win in 1966. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Bobby Moore famously lifted the World Cup with England in 1966 and is considered one of the greatest defenders in the history of football.
The West Ham legend also made it onto the big screen, starring alongside the likes of Pele, Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone in Escape to Victory as Allied prisoners of war in a German prison camp who play an exhibition match against the Nazis.
13. Frank Leboeuf
Frank Leboeuf celebrates France’s World Cup win in 1998. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Frank Leboeuf was part of a successful side at Chelsea in the late 1990s and was a member of the France squad which won the World Cup in 1998 and also Euro 2000.
After retirement from football, Leboeuf went to Los Angeles to study acting and ended up appearing in the Oscar-winning film The Theory of Everything, in which he played a Swiss doctor. Later, he went on to star in French crime drama Magellan.
12. Fitz Hall
Fitz Hall pictured during his time at Newcastle. (Image credit: Getty Images)
A defender or striker who played professionally between 2001 and 2014, Fitz Hall is best remembered for spells at Queens Park Rangers and Crystal Palace. He also had a spell on loan at Newcastle.
But before all of that, Hall appeared in Luc Besson’s blockbuster The Fifth Element. You know, the one with Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich. Nobody knows how or why, but Hall has confirmed he is indeed the 12-year-old at the start of the film who watches with surprise as a spaceship lands. Random.
11. Ian Wright
Ian Wright celebrates a goal for Arsenal against West Ham in 1997. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Ian Wright was one of the best English strikers of his generation and scored 185 times for Arsenal in an impressive career. After retirement, he became a popular pundit, too.
In 2011, he starred in Gun of the Black Sun, a film about an old Nazi pistol that may or may not have mystical powers and falls into the wrong hands. In 2023, he was given a big role in The Kitchen as Lord Kitchener, the resident DJ and de facto leader of an endangered social housing community. The reviews have been largely positive.
10. Zinedine Zidane
Zinedine Zidane celebrates as France beat Portugal at Euro 2000. (Image credit: Getty Images)
On the pitch, Zinedine Zidane was one of the best footballers of all time. Off it, the Frenchman was a shy character who shunned the limelight in his playing days.
Not the kind of guy you would expect to see donning a wig and eyeliner in an Asterix film, then? But bizarrely, he did. Zizou starred in Asterix at the Olympic Games and his character’s name was “Numerodix”. Get it? He also appeared in two Goal films.
9. Olivier Giroud
Olivier Giroud celebrates after scoring for France against Chile in March 2024. (Image credit: Alamy)
Olivier Giroud has played for some of Europe’s top teams in an impressive career – including AC Milan, Arsenal and Chelsea – and is a World Cup winner with France.
That triumph came in 2018 and later in the year, the striker provided the voice for Marvel antagonist Norman Osborn (aka Green Goblin) in the French version of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
8. Ally McCoist
Ally McCoist celebrates after Rangers beat St Mirren 4-0 to claim the 1991/92 Scottish Premier Division title at Ibrox in April 1992. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Ally McCoist was winding down his football career in 2000 and took time out that year to star alongside some famous names in the film A Shot at Glory.
In a movie also featuring Robert Duvall and Michael Keaton, McCoist plays Jackie McQuillan, a character bizarrely branded “Scotland’s most notorious star soccer player” in the trailer’s voice-over. In it, he joins a struggling Scottish side looking to reach their first ever cup final as the club’s American owner tries to relocate the team to Dublin. Kevin Costner said he had “an Olivier-type quality.” Laurence or Giroud?
7. Stan Collymore
Stan Collymore applauds the fans during a match between his former club Nottingham Forest and Everton in 2023. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Stan Collymore’s colourful career was a bumpy ride, featuring some huge highs in the early years at Nottingham Forest, a big move to Liverpool and a sharp decline later on.
Collymore retired in 2002 and somehow ended up alongside Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2 a few years after that. Stone leaves Stan to drown in the water after driving a sports car off a bridge and his part is over after four minutes. The actress later tipped Collymore for stardom, but the movie bombed and Stan hasn’t been seen on the big screen since.
6. Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Zlatan Ibrahimovic celebrates after scoring for AC Milan against Udinese in March 2023. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Zlatan Ibrahimovic retired in 2023 after a long career spent at many of Europe’s biggest clubs – including Ajax, AC Milan, Barcelona, Inter, Juventus and Manchester United.
That same year, he played a Roman warrior called Caius Antivirus (no, really) in Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom. The reviews are not good.
5. Neymar
Neymar looks dejected after Brazil’s World Cup defeat to Croatia on penalties in 2022. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Neymar left Barcelona to sign for Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 and the Brazilian forward also made his film debut that year in xXx: Return of Xander Cage.
Often overshadowed by Kylian Mbappe and later Lionel Messi at PSG, Neymar is made to star in a scene alongside Samuel L. Jackson in the aforementioned movie. Unfair. Later, he returned to play a monk in Netflix show Money Heist.
4. David Beckham
Manchester United’s David Beckham hits a free-kick against Tottenham in 2000. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Everyone has heard of the film Bend it like Beckham – but the man himself wasn’t in it. The midfielder had been due to appear in a cameo role for the 2002 hit, but scheduling issues meant it wasn’t possible.
Beckham did appear rather briefly as a knight in Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and was also in Goal! The Dream Begins alongside some of his Real Madrid team-mates.
3. Pele
Pele with the New York Cosmos. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Pele’s most famous film role, outside of Brazil at least, was Second World War drama Escape to Victory.
In it, he starred alongside fellow footballers including Bobby Moore and Ossie Ardiles, plus big Hollywood names such as Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone. But the three-time World Cup winner also featured in a number of roles in Brazil, including period drama A Marcha.
2. Eric Cantona
Eric Cantona wearing a suit and holding a football. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Eric Cantona was always a bit different and the Frenchman’s foray into the world of film after retiring from football at the age of 30 was hardly a big surprise.
The former Manchester United forward appeared as a French ambassador in Elizabeth opposite Cate Blanchett. He went on to feature in a series of productions in England and France, before playing himself in a brief cameo in Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric.
1. Vinnie Jones
Vinnie Jones at Wimbledon. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Vinnie Jones may have been a hard man on the pitch, but few would have predicted that the former Wimbledon midfielder would go on to become a Hollywood actor.
He did, though. Jones starred in Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which paved the way for a series of film roles – including Snatch, Gone in 60 Seconds and X-Men: The Last Stand. And whatever you think of his acting, he has carved out a serious career on the big screen since retiring from football.
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Ben Hayward is the Weekend Editor of FourFourTwo. A European football writer and Tottenham Hotspur fan with over 15 years’ experience, he has covered games all over the world – including three World Cups, several Champions League finals, Euros, Copa America – and has spent much of that time in Spain. Ben speaks English and Spanish, currently dividing his time between Barcelona and London, covering all the big talking points of the weekend on FFT: he’s also written several list features and interviewed Guglielmo Vicario for the magazine.
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