1. Wide of robot football hall with robots playing on mock football field

2. Close-up of robots playing football

3. Wide shot with people watching in front of monitors and keyboards

4. Robot scoring goal

5. Wide of robot dogs playing football

6. Various of game with robot dogs

7. Tilt up to show Mathias Junge cheering

8. SOUNDBITE (German): Mathias Junge, German team, Humboldt University:

"It's a robot game - the robots are not guided by remote control. They have a little camera in the front and so they can see their surroundings and they can move. They know one goal is yellow and the other blue and the ball orange so they can build a memory."

9. Various of robot dogs playing football

10. Various of workshop

11. Tilt up from Mexican robot footballers

12. Mexican supporters wearing sombrero

13. SOUNDBITE (Spanish): Mexican supporter, Vox Pop:

"We came to support our electronic football team and we hope we will win."

14. More of Mexican robot team playing

15. Mexican supporters wearing sombrero and waving flag

16. Various of exhibition hall

17. Multiplex Modellsport robots dancing

18. SOUNDBITE (English): John Han, Multiplex Modellsport, Sales Manager for Europe:

"This is a product, material for introduction to robotics, for example. The real advantage here is that if you programme it, you can transfer it in a second and you see what the result of your programming is."

19. Various of Multiplex Modellsport robots dancing

As the world's best footballers compete in Germany for the sport's top prize, the World Cup, mechanised players in the northern town of Bremen took part in their own competition on Wednesday, a tournament called RoboCup 2006.

More than 440 teams from 36 countries will fight for 33 world championship titles at Robocup's tenth anniversary.

After 50 years of research within artificial intelligence, it has been determined that robots can be better programmed to play football than the game of chess.

In one game, four-legged robots, shaped like tiny dogs, move in unison as they crawl toward the ball.

About 2,500 participants from all over the world and 20,000 visitors are expected to take part in RoboCup 2006.

RoboCup is an international project to promote artificial intelligence and robotics research.

The ultimate goal, or should that be dream, is to develop a team of fully autonomous robots that can win against the human world champion team in soccer by the year 2050.

Keyword-wacky -bizarre

Keyword-world cup 2006