When Footballers Try Being Pop Stars: Cristiano Ronaldo, Gyan, Santa Cruz, Gazza

Footballers love the adulation. If things are going well, the fans chant their name, the newspapers hang on their every touch, and girls swoon around them like pop stars.

So it's hardly surprising that a few of them have tried the real thing. They say football is the new rock 'n' roll; well, here's what happens when footballers have a go at music for real.

The results are not always kind on the ears...

He's Real Madrid's world-beating Galactico, but he's also a recording artist.

Check out Cristiano Ronaldo's dulcet tones...

In 1999, Andy Cole played his part in helping Manchester United win an unprecedented treble.

He also released a cover of the 1982 song "Outstanding." Unsurprisingly, it didn't make it inside the UK Top 40.

It was 1990, and Paul Gascoigne's fame was at an all-time high.

Gazza had just led England to the semi-finals of the World Cup, where a booking meant he'd have missed the final. His tears took his star into the stratosphere.

Here he is with Lindisfarne, singing on the No. 2 hit "Fog on the Tyne."

They were the Tottenham and England duo with rhyming names, and a fondness for flair and bad hair.

So why not record a single together? It reached No. 12 in the UK charts in 1987.

We shouldn't really knock this one, because Roque Santa Cruz's song is out there to raise money for underprivileged children.

So why not go ahead and buy it HERE to get the full experience.

And then we can talk about the Blackburn Rovers striker's vocals.

He's the Ghana star who lit up the World Cup and earned himself a big money move to the EPL with Sunderland.

He's also a music artist.

Arsenal legend Ian Wright released his one and only single in 1993, a house ditty called, all too predictably, "Do the Right Thing."

Nice hat, Wrighty, and nice rapping in the breakdown.

Vinnie Jones is not just a former Premier League footballer and Hollywood star.

He's also a pop star, as this 2002 track proves.

Or maybe it doesn't.

The former Liverpool legend was making a name for himself at Hamburg when he recorded this 1979 track.

The Germans probably loved it. After all, they think David Hasselhoff is the savior of music.

United States midfielder Clint Dempsey teamed up with rappers XO and Big Hawk to record this track in the build-up to the 2006 World Cup.

Some people think he's pretty decent on the mic.

German legend Franz Beckenbauer was somewhat of a crooner back in his homeland during the 1960s.

Check out this brilliant video.

The one football-related song that most people in England agree is a classic.

New Order provide the sound of the early 1990s, with John Barnes delivering one of the most famous raps in history.

Genius.