FUNNYMAN WILL FERRELL TAKES HIS SOCCER SERIOUSLY

  Who knew? Comedian Will Ferrell is a man who takes his football seriously—even though, like all Americans, he calls it soccer.

When we met in New York to talk about his latest movie, the political comedy The Campaign, he told me about a recent Soccer Aid charity match organised by Robbie Williams in which he played in for the Rest of the World against England in Manchester.

“The English team were an average of ten years younger than us and all their celebrities had played in professional youth soccer programmes, but we were leading 1-0 at halftime,” he told me proudly. Ferrell’s team, which also included Roy Keane, Freddie Lumberg, Hernan Crespo Gerard Butler, James McAvoy, Edward Norton, Woody Harrelson and Mike Myers, went on to lose 3-1 but the game raised more than $6 million for UNICEF.

With the Champions League trophy

Ferrell insisted to me he is not a supporter of any particular EPL team although when Chelsea were in Seattle recently he went to meet them and was allowed to hold the European Champions League Cup. It was swiftly taken away from him when he tried to sign it with a marker pen.

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