Aaaaand we're back. It's been a whole fortnight since your last Football Circus fix. Since our last edition, the World Cup has finished, Leo Messi's getting done for tax evasion, Philipp Lahm has retired from international football and Rio n' 'Arry have been reunited. You want to read more about all that? Good, welcome to SKY SPOR...wait a minute...You don't want all that! So instead, we shall inform you of Andres Iniesta's summer holiday involving wooden spoons, two crowd surfing Belgian internationals, Kevin Grosskreutz's new ink, Liverpool's rather amusing trip Stateside and corruption in Italian Football. More like it? Thought so. It's good to be back!
Football Circus Clown Quote of the Week
“He got a cake but when it was Roberto Carlos’s birthday, the president of Anzhi gave him a Bugatti".
- Yaya Toure's agent Dimitry Seluk, after his client's employers Manchester City failed to, well, give Toure a birthday gift of a Bugatti.
Blog Awards Ireland 2014
Just before we dive right into this week's edition, we can confirm we have been officially nominated for the Blog Awards Ireland 2014 under the 'Sports and Recreation' category. Thanks to all who voted for us!
Iniesta Happy with the Wooden Spoon
Andres Iniesta is known for having played a key role for both Barcelona and Spain in recent years and will undoubtedly go down as one of the best midfielders of his generation. That however, does not excuse the fact that he appears to be an out and out nerd.
While Balotelli was being snapped frolicking on the beach with his missus-to-be in Florida during pre-season, and Jack Wilshire was up the creek for being caught on camera smoking during the summer break, Iniesta has had rather more timid photos surface online of his summer hols. The Barca man was busy being knighted by the "Illustrious and Noble Order of the Wooden Spoon". The Stonecutter-esque looking group are apparently an olive oil conservation group.
Barca will be hoping that Iniesta's wooden spoon affiliation isn't a sign of things to come for their 2014-15 season. @barcastuff tweeted the following photos of the rather strange event.
Surfing USA Belgium
While Andres Iniesta may not have been experiencing the most heart-pulsating of pre-season breaks, Belgium internationals Jan Vertonghen and Dries Mertens were certainly getting their party on. The pair took a trip to dance festival 'Tomorrowland' in their home nation last weekend.
Not only did Vertonghen and Mertens make the most of the music, they also took the opportunity to get on stage before diving into the crowd for a good old fashioned crowd surf. The Spurs physios may not be best pleased with Vertonghen as he was filmed by a fellow festival-goer. The video of course was then uploaded onto Youtube.
Grosskreutz Joins the Twattoo Club
Germany's Kevin Grosskreutz was so overjoyed by his national team's World Cup victory that, as any rationally thinking man would, he immediately got himself down to his local tattoo parlour and got inked up to forever remember the success. It's not the Borussia Dortmund star's first tattoo in fact. He already had a tattoo to reflect Dortmund's winning of the 2011-12 Bundesliga and indeed Dortmund's 2012 German Cup victory, two competitions in which he played a significant role for his team. The only problem with his newly acquired 2014 World Cup tattoo? He didn't play one minute of the tournament!
Prior to the World Cup, Grosskreutz was beginning to garner something of a name for himself here on Football Circus. A flood of Grosskreutz stories seemed to come to the fore in the weeks and months leading upto the competition. So much so that at one point, there were doubts that he would even travel to Brazil. Travel, he did, but as our Fantasy Football team can confirm, international caps were not something he returned to Deutschland with.
With his actions of course, we feel we're well within our rights to say that our pre-World Cup prediction that Mr. Grosskreutz would 'do something stupid', has now officially happened. We'll move onto that later though. (Yes it does still count even if he got the tattoo after the World Cup. No, the man shouldn't be allowed celebrate a victory that he felt he was part of. No, we're not being bitter over the fact that he didn't actually do anything stupid during the tournament. Glad that's cleared up).
Stevie G-esus!
So Liverpool were in New Jersey this week as part of their pre-season tour to the U.S. And you know what teenage New Jersey girls really love? A bit of Stevie G apparently. Not since John Lennon's shooting has there been such a stir over a middle aged Scouser stumbling across U.S. Soil.
On their official Youtube channel, Liverpool uploaded the following video of one particular fan who could not contain herself as the Liverpool captain took a snap with her and signed an autograph. Through her sobs the teen could be heard screaming "Oh my God!!".
Meanwhile in Baaaawston, Liverpool have seemingly decided that some of their players needed to fatten up after the summer break, sending Daniel Sturridge and Jordan Henderson to a local Subway, and Lucas Leiva and new boy Rickie Lambert to Dunkin' Donuts.
What's Mad Mario Upto this Week?
Oh how've we missed keeping you up to date on the life of Mario Balotelli over the past two weeks. He's had his fair share of headlines as usual, though hasn't yet got himself a move away from A.C. Milan. In fact he lined out for Milan in the International Cup of Champions in the U.S. this week as Milan took on Man City. Poor old Mario and co were annihalated by the opposotion and found themselves on the wrong end of a 5-1 drubbing. Yet Balo still found time to pose for a selfie with two Milan supporting pitch invaders. Would we suggest he spends more time concentrating on his football than his posing? Nah!
He's also found the time to front Puma's latest ad campaign, appropriately titled 'Troublemakers'. No better man.
Meanwhile veteran Milan goalkeeper Christian Abbiatti has told Gazzetta Dello Sport that he believes Balo can be Milan's new Zlatan Ibrahimovic:
"He will be back in the squad bursting with enthusiasm after the World Cup. He wants to prove that things are different from how it went in Brazil.
"Can he become Milan's new Ibrahimovic? If he understands that he has to give his best in every training session, then yes.
"I am sure that with new coach Filippo Inzaghi he will succeed".
Balo as the new Ibra...Now that would be something.
Italian Football Story of the Week
- Italian Football Corrupt at the Highest Level? Surely Not!
Set your faces to 'stunned' for it would seem that Italian football is indeed, rotten to its core. That's the message we're choosing to take at least, given the events unfolding in Italy this week as the Italian Football Federation look set to appoint one Carlo Tavecchio as their new president. This is in spite of 71 year old Tavecchio having being accused of both racism and sexism.
Comments attributed to Tavecchio as recently as Friday went as follows:
"England identifies the players coming in and, if they are professional, they are allowed to play. Here, on the other hand, let’s say there’s Opti Poba, who has come here, who previously was eating bananas and now is a first-team player for Lazio … In England he has to demonstrate his CV and his pedigree".
He has also been quoted this week as stating:
"We intend to give dignity to women in football on an aesthetic view as well.
"Until now it was thought women were handicapped subjects compared to the male in stamina, resistance, physical and athletic terms. Instead, we have found they are very similar".
Many followers of the game in Italy are, quite rightly, outraged. But as former Roma player and now president of the Italian Footballers Association Damaino Tomassi has noted, the outrage seems to be going unnoticed or worse, ignored:
"I am disconcerted by Carlo Tavecchio’s comments on Opti Poba and bananas.
"But I don’t know if I ought to be even more dumbfounded by the silence surrounding them".
World Cup Fantasy Football Team and Predictions
- Football Circus World Cup 2014 Fantasy Football Team
For those of you who've spent the past two weeks just itching to find out how the Football Circus World Cup fantasy football team finished, your wait is over. Our boys finished with a total of 284 points, 42 of which were racked up during the last round of matches (final and 3rd / 4th place playoff). We also had a final ranking of 575,636th in the world. Which means nothing to us really. What we were concentrating on, as it had become quite apparent from an early stage that our 'quirky' selection of players were never going far, were our goals of having one of our players sent off, one own goal and our frontline of Hulk, Jo and Dirk Kuyt scoring no goals in the final round of games.
Well, our three strikers came good (or bad depending on how you look at it). Hulk played a mere 18 minutes and was his usual rubbish self, while Jo and Kuyt despite playing the full match, may as well have not been on the pitch. Sadly, our sending off and own goal never came. We tried our darndest and with a midfield selection that included Nigel de Jong and Javier Mascherano, we were hopeful that a scarlet coloured card would be flashed at some point. But alas, it was not to be. And there ended Football Circus' foray into World Cup Fantasy Football, on a whimper.
- Football Circus 10 World Cup Predictions
Our final piece of World Cup business involves us now recapping and reviewing our predictions for the tournament. So for the very last time, here's our list of 10. Gulp...
1. Italy to progress to at least the quarter-finals with Mario Balotelli scoring at least two goals along the way
2. Kevin Grosskreutz to do something stupid
3. The Dutch squad to have a massive falling out
4. The French squad to have a massive falling out
5. Wayne Rooney to be pants
6. Cristiano Ronaldo to finally make an impact at the World Cup
7. Javier Mascherano to be sent off
8. Spain to relinquish their crown as champions
9. At least one team to blame poor performance on the heat
10. Julio Cesar to cry
2. Kevin Grosskreutz to do something stupid
3. The Dutch squad to have a massive falling out
4. The French squad to have a massive falling out
5. Wayne Rooney to be pants
6. Cristiano Ronaldo to finally make an impact at the World Cup
7. Javier Mascherano to be sent off
8. Spain to relinquish their crown as champions
9. At least one team to blame poor performance on the heat
10. Julio Cesar to cry
Soooo...
1. Balotelli and chums let us down big time and we are not accepting Luis Suarez's gnashers as an excuse. Nul points.
2. See our 'Grosskreutz Joins the Twattoo Club' story above. We're taking this one and we don't care what you say. We're off the mark, one point.
3. Nope.
4. Non.
5. Half a point on this - He scored a goal. We really should have defined 'pants' more clearly. One and a half points.
6. Oh how wrong we were on this one.
7. And wrong again.
8. Yes! Gracias Espana, you bottlers! Two and half points.
9. Sadly there was no real whining by anyone about the heat. With 'cooling breaks' introduced, nobody felt the need to have a good moan. Which is both surprising and disappointing.
10. Tiny Tears came through for us here, breaking into tears after his side beat Chile on penalties. Probably should have shed more when he conceded seven to Germany. Three and a half points.
2. See our 'Grosskreutz Joins the Twattoo Club' story above. We're taking this one and we don't care what you say. We're off the mark, one point.
3. Nope.
4. Non.
5. Half a point on this - He scored a goal. We really should have defined 'pants' more clearly. One and a half points.
6. Oh how wrong we were on this one.
7. And wrong again.
8. Yes! Gracias Espana, you bottlers! Two and half points.
9. Sadly there was no real whining by anyone about the heat. With 'cooling breaks' introduced, nobody felt the need to have a good moan. Which is both surprising and disappointing.
10. Tiny Tears came through for us here, breaking into tears after his side beat Chile on penalties. Probably should have shed more when he conceded seven to Germany. Three and a half points.
Well there you have it. Three and a half of our ten predictions proved to be correct(ish). This whole exercise has really proven nothing other than we at Football Circus have about as much foresight as an uneducated mole. Now let us never speak of this again.
Artist's Impression of the Week
- 'Iniesta Looks Back at Old Holiday Snaps'.
Football Recommendation of the Week
- Inter Milan 2014/15 Kits; We can't choose between the home away or third kit, so we've gone for them all because they're all quite fetching indeed!
Non-Football Recommendation of the Week
- Guardians of the Galaxy; Yes it looks extremely nerdy but it might, just might, be a decent 'superhero' film. A talking racoon is always a good start.
Don't forget you can follow us on Twitter @footballcircus or on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Football-Circus/418804204906352
You can also contact us at footballcircus@gmail.com
