12 World Cup Movie Lookalikes

The Character: The porky-but-loveable psychic copper from super-show Heroes, Matt Parkman.

What do they have in common?: Thought-stealer Parkman uses his superpowers to read the brains of enemies, just as Cesar reads the intentions of striker to stop goals from happening. Yeah, that’s pretty weak but they look exactly the same .

The Character: Michael Bluth, the calm centre of the circus that is Arrested Development’s Bluth family. Film version is still on for 2011…

What do they have in common?: Excellent chins, very slightly ginger beards, and kind eyes.

The Character: Dave Kleinfeld, Sean Penn’s sweaty, puff-permed lawyer to gangland boss Carlito Brigante.

What do they have in common?: Bad hair and basically nothing else.

The Character: Pob – the raspberry-blowing ‘80s kids TV puppet. Admittedly not a big-screen star, but the resemblance is uncanny.

What do they have in common?: Just like England’s world cup plans after Green’s fateful blunder, things have a habit of unravelling around Pob (which only makes sense if you remember the title sequence in which a stray thread of wool from Pob’s jumper lures his celeb guest inside every week. No? Good).

The Character: Dropped-baby-turned-mashed-patty-of-muscle Sloth, from ‘80s kiddie epic The Goonies.

What do they have in common?: Get ready to wince: both overcame childhood accidents (Ribéry’s scars come from a car crash suffered when he was two) to become heroes in later life. If eating a twinkie and screaming can be called heroic, and we say yes it can.

The Character: Spindly-limbed boss of Christmas-jacker and boss of Halloween, Jack Skellington.

What do they have in common?: Both Jack and Crouchy defy their insectoid physiques to pull of some excellent dance moves.

The Character: The latest mean-ass Mexican portrayed by real-life hardman Danny Trejo: Machete Cortez.

What do they have in common?: Tevez angered Manchester United fans by crossing the city at the start of last season, and fans are likely to be similarly upset by the character Machete, who moves from the happy Spy Kids trilogy to this grizzly crime caper.

The Character: Giant-headed, money-printing ogreberk, Shrek.

What do they have in common?: Both star in fairytales gone horribly wrong, the only difference being that, unlike Rooney’s world cup, Shrek always gets a happy ending.

The Character: The talent-absorbing supervillain Sylar, as played by Star Trek’s Zachary Quinto.

What do they have in common?: Cesc is an excellent all-rounder, and like the clock-mending abomination he really keeps things ticking over in the middle of the park. He reads the game like Sylar reads minds, and eats brains at half time. Probably.

The Character: Peter Lorre’s trembling child-killer Hans Beckert in Fritz Lang’s classic thriller M.

What do they have in common?: Both are naturalised Germans (Ozil’s family, as bleating world cup commentators tell us repeated, are Turkish, while Lorre moved to Berlin from his native Hungary) and Ozil killed England’s world cup dreams just as dead as those little girls in M.

The Character: Grumpy flyaway pensioner Carl Frederickson from Pixar’s Up.

What do they have in common?: Enormous underbites, troublesome youthful companions (23 in Fabio’s case) and a deadening sense that all their plans will forever go unfulfilled.

The Character: Tony Todd, most famous for playing slasher antihero Candyman.

What do they have in common?: You mean aside from the same face? Both are hitmen of sorts, although the Candyman has a significant better strike record, and tends to finish the job when he’s one on one.