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A man looking very like Sven-Goran Eriksson, the former England manager who is currently in charge of the Mexican team, settled into the dugout.

Tim Oliver, a Ricky Gervais lookalike

The distinctive frameless spectacles, the studious Scandinavian manner and the ice blue tie all helped, but it was the pair of tall brunettes wearing short skirts by his side that really fooled Mexico.

performed a double act with Williams called The Ex-Managers. "A football manager can be sacked at any time so you never know if you are going to be in a job. He worried about that."

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A man looking very like Sven-Goran Eriksson, the former England manager who is currently in charge of the Mexican team, settled into the dugout.

The distinctive frameless spectacles, the studious Scandinavian manner and the ice blue tie all helped, but it was the pair of tall brunettes wearing short skirts by his side that really fooled Mexico.

The distinctive frameless spectacles, the studious Scandinavian manner and the ice blue tie all helped, but it was the pair of tall brunettes wearing short skirts by his side that really fooled Mexico.

A man looking very like Sven-Goran Eriksson, the former England manager who is currently in charge of the Mexican team, settled into the dugout at the Estadio Universitario in Mexico City on Wednesday afternoon and started talking tactics with the coach of the Pumas, a championship winning team.

"He explained to me that he was looking at players for his first squad selection for Mexico, and I believed him," said Ricardo Ferreti, the team's Brazilian manager who had been putting his players through shooting practice.

With his lilting Swedish accent and reputation as a romancer apparently intact judging by the women on his arms, he convinced onlooking reporters too. "All of a sudden he appears with two girls and it looked very strange indeed," said José Angel Parra, who writes for El Universal. "We'd heard that over there [in Britain] he'd been involved in some scandals so we didn't know what to think. They sat down behind the goal but then they were called over to the bench."

Later the silver-haired fiftysomething chatted in the car park saying: "We will be building the team and I hope I have your support for the future." Reporters asked him about the stadium: "It is beautiful. Obviously not the same as some of those built more recently ... I am very happy to be here. I am seeing a little more of Mexico now."

Then he said "hasta luego", meaning "see you later" in Spanish, and left.

It was only then that anyone realised this was not the national manager at all, but Derek Williams, a 56-year-old actor from Welwyn Garden City and his appearance at the Pumas training session was part of an audacious bid to rekindle his career as a Sven lookalike.

With his career facing a potential slide following Manchester City's decision to sack the real Eriksson earlier this summer, Williams, who is married to the deputy headteacher of a Hertfordshire school, followed his alter ego to Mexico. In partnership with Record, a Mexican sports newspaper, he rode in a blacked out Chevrolet SUV to the home ground of the Pumas where the players were training.

Flanked by a pair of bodyguards befitting his status as the manager of the Mexican national football team, the pretend Sven is understood to have used documents purporting to be from the Mexican Football Federation to gain access and once inside, he made a beeline for Ferreti before chatting to the media in English.

Williams, who is well-known on the British lookalike circuit for his convincing full-character performances complete with the Swede's vocal mannerisms and physical ticks, managed to fool everyone.

"To tell the truth, I liked the joke," said Ferreti afterwards.

The National Federation was less amused. It issued a warning to all the teams in the country's top league that there was a Sven imposter on the loose. In a statement it described Williams as "irresponsibly exploiting his likeness to the national coach" and warned clubs "not to let yourselves be surprised by this individual".

Mexico has not exactly welcomed the real Eriksson. Fervent nationalists argued that no non-Mexican could understand the idiosyncrasies of the national game.

The fact that he doesn't speak Spanish and will rent a $12,000 (£6,000) a month penthouse with spectacular views made things worse.

According to Daithi Gilfoyle-McGroarty, an Ozzy Osbourne lookalike and a friend of Williams, he travelled to Mexico in trepidation. "He was basically worried that people wouldn't recognise him," he said. "But he is so good at it that people never see through it."

"He never knows where he is from one season to the next," said Tim Oliver, a Ricky Gervais lookalike who performed a double act with Williams called The Ex-Managers. "A football manager can be sacked at any time so you never know if you are going to be in a job. He worried about that."

Story courtesy of Robert Booth and Jo Tuckman in Mexico City  The Guardian,  Friday July 18, 2008