Slaps, Smells and Science

As the tension rises in the lead up to yet another Premier League campaign we suggest you take a break from frantically refreshing the BBC or Sky Sports football pages in the hope of an announcement of a new signing for your team. Put down that newspaper which previews each team's season and predicts who will finish in the top four. And calm those twitching fingers that are making change after change to your fantasy football team. Just breathe for a moment and read Football Circus, where we will this week bring you news of cows on a pitch in Peru, stink bombs, scientists and a Maradona run in with the media...

Football Circus Clown Quote of the Week

“There were a couple of opportunities to stay here [in the Premier League] but I can’t imagine playing for anyone else after being 12 years at Chelsea. I’ve got a lot of respect for a lot of other Premier League clubs, particularly the top ones, but I'm not sure I could have done that".

- Frank Lampard, May 2013

"Joining up with Manchester City is a fantastic opportunity for me".

- Frank Lampard, August 2014

On the Head! Or Maybe Not...

The art of heading the ball has come in for criticism this week as scientists have suggested that heading a football may in fact be unsafe for children.

Sky News in the UK have this week being speaking with Dr. Michael Grey who is a reader of Neuroscience at the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences in the University of Birmingham. Dr. Grey has claimed that he and colleagues believe heading the ball is dangerous for children.

Dr. Grey has stated:

"The reason for that is two-fold. First, the neck muscles aren't yet developed for the size of the children's head at that age.

"The other reason is that their brains are still developing so they're still in a very vulnerable period for taking a blow to the head, and I should say these concussive events, we don't yet know if repetitive injury such as this is safe for professionals either".

Next week, we'll look at the introduction of cotton wool kits being introduced at Under 12's level and below...

Maradona the Slapper

Diego Marodona has been called a number of names in his 53 years. A genius; a womaniser; the greatest player in history; a fat drug addict. Though he has not, until now, been called a slapper. He added that particular title to his collection this week, as he was filmed slapping a journalist in his home country of Argentina.

Maradona was filmed in his car by numerous reporters leaving a theatre in Buenos Aires. Also in the car were his son Diego Fernando and one of Maradona's baby mommas (Diego Fernando's mother unsurprisingly) and ex-wife, Veronica Ojeda. Ojeda was in the passenger seat at the time and while Maradona casually fielded journalist's questions through the open car window, Ojeda was allegedly *shock horror* WINKED AT by one of the journalists.

The journalist's twitchy eye lead to Maradona angrily exiting the vehicle, calling the man in question an "idiot", then slapping him across the face.

Exclaimed the decorated former striker:

"Why mess with my wife if I do not mess with you?".

Why indeed Mr. Journo. Why indeed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zEAmS6x2bo

Pique Has a Stinker

27 year old grown man with a beard, Gerard Pique, is in trouble this week for his behaviour on a Barcelona team flight to Helsinki ahead of a pre-season friendly with HJK. Pique, according to Spanish newspaper Sport, let off a stink bomb at the rear of the plane that Barca travelled on.

The smell was so foul that the Spanish defender infuriated cabin crew and was forced by club staff to apologise to them, after the cabin crew themselves had to apologise to other passengers on the flight. Teammates were equally upset by Pique's childish actions, though were perhaps not as surprised as the cabin crew, as Pique has form for pranking.

He has previously:

- Thrown sunflower seeds at the team bus

- Bizarrely prematurely informed journalists of the birth of his and partner Shakira's son
- Along with Lionel Messi, burned a club staff member's moped

Any hopes of Pique maturing since Carles Puyol's departure from Barcelona seem to be hopeless however in light of his latest stunt.

Load of Bull! Cows Removed from Peruvian Pitch

This week saw the meeting of club sides Minsa FBC and Transporte Inambari of Mazuko in the Peruvian Cup, but the match was interrupted by some visitors of the bovine variety. Of course, the events were captured on camera and can now be seen on Youtube.

The herd of cows were seemingly undeterred, or unmooooved if you will, by the players running around the pitch at full pace and a football being kicked around. They casually made their collective way onto the pitch, with two of them even locking horns at one point, oblivious to the fact that a match was taking place.

Their presence was fleeting however and almost as soon as they had arrived, they were making their way home, possibly unimpressed with the reaction they had received from the fans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqt-8y1tSXk

What's Mad Mario Upto this Week?

It's birthday week this week for Balotelli, with the striker having turned 24 on Tuesday. He took to Instagram to both thank fans for their birthday wishes and record his birthday exploits, which involved him talking on his phone whilst riding a Segway around a hotel.

Balo wasn't the only one celebrating his birthday. His club A.C. Milan chose to celebrate the great man by uploading a highlights video on their official Youtube channel, paying tribute to the frontman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV4-SQ6aocc

Super Mario's teammate Nigel de Jong who also played along side him at Manchester City, followed suit by tweeting Balo a birthday message:

"Congratulations on your 24th birthday Mario. Becoming an adult, act now".

The tweet appears to have been tongue in cheek but new Milan manager Pippo Inzaghi will certainly hope he sees a mature trouble-free Balotelli going into the 2014-15 season. Tuttosport this week reports that despite countless reports linking the striker with a move away from the San Siro this summer, Milan have now reluctantly accepted that they will be unable to offload the Italian international, and have now settled on holding onto the striker for the next season at least.

Italian Football Story of the Week

- Tavecchio Voted FIGC President

Two weeks ago we reported on the possibility of Carlo Tavechio, who had racist and sexist comments attributed to him, being elected as president of the FIGC (Italian F.A.). Truthfully, given the media storm that went with Tavecchio's comments, we did not believe there was genuine chance he would be voted in. Well, this is Italian football and Tavechio has been elected president. The 71 year old defeated rival Demetrio Albertini who to our knowledge, is not a racist nor a sexist , take the title of president.

Already though confidence must surely be restored in fans of the Italian game, as former president Franco Carraro has come out with the following comments on Tavecchio's election:

"He is not the ideal President for Italian football.

"And I do not deny that his shortcomings are obvious, he does not speak well, of course, yet he is the man of this moment, the best possible option.

"And Demetrio Albertini? He made an incredible speech on medals and merit, but I wonder where has he been for the past eight years?

"Was it perhaps another Albertini who drove out Claudio Gentile from the Italy Under-21 team, and winner of an Olympic bronze medal, to appoint his friend Pierluigi Casiraghi?".

Oh well that's alright then.

Artist's Impression of the Week

- 'Pique Stink Bomb Goes Down Badly'.

Football Recommendation of the Week

- Sky Sports 5 / John Myatt; They're dubbing it "Your new home of European football" but quite how true that is remains to be seen. Though it lacks Serie A, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga, Sky Sports' new European football channel does boast the Champions League, La Liga, the Eredivisie and Euro 2016 qualifiers. We're more impressed however with these John Myatt pieces which were released as part of Sky's promotion.

http://www.feverpr.com/sky-sports-5-european-greats/

http://www1.skysports.com/europeanfootball

Non-Football Recommendation of the Week

 - 'Ceannt Fort' (Wicker Bones); Ceannt Fort is the latest single from Dublin band Wicker Bones and is well worth a listen. Really great piece of music. "Ceannt Fort is the name of a picturesque housing estate in Dublin city beside St. James' Hospital. It was written by Bryan Dunphy whose mother grew up in the area and combines nostalgic imagery with the perceived timelessness of the place. The instrumental arrangement was written by Dylan Curran".

http://wickerbones.com/track/ceannt-fort

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

The Dressing Room

Hello and welcome once again to your staple, once-weekly diet of nonsensical football stories from around the world, otherwise known as Football Circus. This week's edition sees an oddly large number of clothes related stories, which include a shirt mix up and two footballers who will be cursing their headwear. We've also got an Irish manager who has proven to be quite the wordsmith and the footballer known as the 'Beast' having a moan about his FIFA rating.

New Drogs Manager Richardson has Way with Words

Footballers and even football managers for that matter, are rarely known for their eloquence when it comes to their use of the English language. It came as a shock to us therefore, to read the programme notes of newly appointed Drogheda United manager Damien Richardson ahead of his side's home game against UCD in the League of Ireland last weekend. 

Richardson clearly has a talent for writing and this was reflected in the match programme. He may have gone a little over the top with his musings it certainly made a change from your standard manager introduction.

Richardson wrote:

"Life was calm. Life was flowing with such an elegant composure, that I began to wonder on a daily basis why I had waited so long to meander peacefully along the precocious path of semi-retirement. I had time for everything and everybody. A new man in a new world. Blissful and unconcerned.

Then the phone rang. I was offered a job, in Drogheda, and amazing myself, I proposed time for consideration. Sitting contemplatively under the bowing branches of my heavily-laden pear tree my mind wandered whimsically. My life was indeed calm, unruffled and serene, but, almost surreptitiously, my mental meandering was slowly dislodging the wrappings of contentment and revealing to a relatively receptive inner self the slightest glimpse of a restlessness that I must confess, has always been an integral aspect of who I am.

But this spirit of restlessness which invariably manifests itself as a confounded and all too often insatiable desire to discover what is around that next corner, has very rarely let me down. So, as ever, I am following my instinct, and here I am.

Consequently, the bliss has been bombed, the peace has been parked, and while the elegant composure is still in place, I cannot offer any guarantees on its longevity.

Is it good to be back? Well, let me put it to you this way, if, like me, you were on the verge of middle age and you were asked to work with a large group of talented young people, at a wonderful club in a football mad town could you turn it down? Of course, it’s a rhetorical question, or to be more precise two rhetorical questions.

The strong relationship between the players and supporters of Drogheda United is also a key component in my decision to return to football. Without wishing to be sycophantic in any way, it is no coincidence that all the best clubs have the best supporters and in this sense this club belongs at the top table. But of course at the moment it is not in residence at the top table so it is essential that we all work together to ensure that the unacceptable situation that abounds at this time is rectified.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the good work being done in recent weeks by Darius Kierans, Neale Fenn and Dermot O’Neill. They have induced stability after a turbulent period and granted me a positive base to work from and they deserve recognition for this. It was an absolute no brainer to retain their services and hopefully they will be of even greater service to the club for some time to come.

The players too deserve enormous credit for the manner in which they have responded to the challenge and the fine win in Tallaght last Friday effectively demonstrated the true personality of the squad.

I am delighted to be here, and I am even more delighted that you are here. I intend to make my presence felt. Are you ready to do the same?

Happy hunting.

Rico".

His new players were obviously inspired by their wordsmith manager as they went on to beat UCD 4-0.

Where's Me Jumper?

Though we tend not to focus on it too much, we at Football Circus know only too well how easy it is to get caught up by the high-speed merry-go-round that is the summer transfer window.

Apparently, the AIK kitman will also vouch for that, after confusion over the transfer of player out of his club, almost left him with egg on his face. In biazarre circumstances, the kitman's blushes were saved by a diehard fan.

Midfielder Celso Borges had originally been left out of the AIK squad that traveled to play Swedish counterparts Gothenburg on Sunday. The Costa Rican had been the subject of a bid from French side Evian.

With the move looking likely to go ahead, Borges was dropped from the match day team that traveled and apparently, his kit was left behind. However club management subsequently had a change of heart and decided to include Borges in the squad. The only problem was, the kitman hadn't been notified and Borges was left without a jersey.

All was not lost though, as AIK's loyal fans came to the rescue. One fo the travelling AIK diehards kindly donated his very own jersey which had 'Borges 10' on the back. Before Borges squeezed into his new apparel, there was also time for the kitman to rectify himself by sewing club sponsors onto the jersey.

And with that, Borges took part in the game, in which AIK ran out 2-0 winners.

You Can Leave Your Hat On - Hat Photos get Lavezzi and Medel in Trouble

The internet can be a cruel mistress for a professional footballer, especially when there's a camera around. Two footballers in particular (PSG's Ezequiel Lavezzi and new Inter Milan signing Gary Medel) will this week be cursing the internet, cameras and even themselves as photos surfaced online which will do neither player's reputations any favours. And oddly enough, the respective sets of photos feature the player's wearing hats!

We'll start with Lavezzi who may be a little more red-faced than Medel. Some rather revealing photos of the Argentine star were leaked this week and quickly went viral on Twitter. The photos show Lavezzi and a female friend in some compromising positions. Lavezzi is shown wearing a policeman's hat, though last time we checked, the forward hadn't started a new career as an officer of the law. The majority of the photos are a little too raunchy for innocent ickle Football Circus to show, but @GFN_France tweeted one that will give you an idea as to what was going on.

Gary Medel's photographic misfortunes were far more innocent that his Argentine counterpart's. However he will certainly be feeling a little foolish. Medel travelled to Milan this week for a medical ahead of a move from Cardiff to Inter. But no quicker could you say "walking red card" than had still photos from a 2012 video of Medel wearing a Juventus cap popped up. Now Medel of course, was not to know in 2012 that a move to Inter Milan would be in the offing just two years down the line, but surely a little foresight would have been helpful. Certainly not a good first impression to make on the Nerazzurri fans.

Footballers Get Worked Up Over FIFA

Professional footballers of the modern era take their FIFA games very seriously. Take Reading's Royston Drenthe, who recently invited four random men to his house to play a FIFA tournament and documented the whole thing on his Instagram account, as you do. The former Real Madrid man (yes, that's right) posted an Instagram message on Sunday, challenging local Reading fans to put their names in a draw to play in the tournament. The winner would win a 'nice prize'. True to his word, the man who was voted as the 2007 U21 European Championship player of the tournament (yes, that's right), picked out four lucky winners, brought them round to his pad and let them duke it out on FIFA for one of them to eventually be presented with an 'R.R. DRENTHE 10' jersey at the end of it all.

http://instagram.com/rawroya

Meanwhile, AFC Wimbledon's Adebayo Akinfenwa, has been having a bit of a moan this week about his FIFA 14 stats. Akinfenwa is 5ft11, weighs over 16 stone and is reknowned for his strength. He could easily be mistaken for a WWE wrestler rather than a footballer. In FIFA 14, the striker was given a strength rating of 97 out of a possible 100, making him the strongest player in the game. Yet Akinfenwa, despite seeming satisfied with that particular stat, lives in hope that the latest edition of the game will see his speed rating increase. Speaking to the Telegraph, Akinfenwa mused:

"I didn’t realise how big FIFA was until last year. I’d always been one of the strongest players in the game, but officially in FIFA 14 I was the strongest in the world.

"If they say so, I must be. I like that.

"I’ve played as myself a few times and I’m very slow. I’ve asked FIFA to make me a little bit quicker, but you can’t have everything. I’ve always been big, my brothers are my size, we come from good stock".

Judging by this compilation video of the man known as 'The Beast', if we were EA, we'd give him whatever bloody rating he wanted!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvXi2Ws4qJ4

What's Mad Mario Upto this Week?

Balotelli has switched sports this week, albeit briefly, as he took to shooting hoops during a visit to Charlotte, North Carolina. In Charlotte as part of AC Milan's pre-season tour of the U.S., Balotelli took a trip to the basketball court of the Davidson college team and he looked just as proficient with a basketball as he does with a football, even managing a one-handed slam dunk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubD1wyLmxPQ

Little else has gone on in the world of Mario this week (that we know of), though he continues, as he has done since the transfer window opened, to be linked with a move away from the San Siro. In spite of this, fellow Milan striker Pazzini has been busy trying to silence the pair's critics and insists that he and Super Mario will light up Serie A next season. In an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, Pazzini commented:

"Mario and I can work together fine. He likes to move around the area, I like to stay inside to finish. So we are complementary.

"You can try to consign strikers to a rigid system but it is difficult to change the characteristics of a player who has liked playing in a particular way for some time.

"Anyway, I see him as calm, he is training well and has great ideas in mind".

Italian Football Story of the Week

- Evra Already Enjoying Life at Juventus

He may only have played one match for his new employers, but Patrica Evra is already singing the praises of all involved at Juventus following his summer move from Manchester United.

Having taken part in Juve's 8-1 friendly victory over ISL All Stars in Indonesia, Evra told his new club's official website:

"In all honesty I didn’t expect such a welcome from the fans, as I thought that only happened with United.

"Mind you, this is precisely why I chose Juve: because it is a big club like Manchester and gives you the same sensations.

"I am very happy. I thank my teammates, the masseurs, everyone in the staff. They gave me a warm welcome and I already feel like family.

"Today the result was unimportant, but it is always nice to win and score lots of goals. We took this test seriously and are working hard, but the important thing is to be ready for August 30".

Artist's Impression of the Week

- 'WARNING: Footballers and Hats Do Not Mix'

Football Recommendation of the Week

- The Other Final; "Held on the same day as the World Cup Final, this alternative final featured the world’s lowest ranking teams of Bhutan and Montserrat. The project was conceived and filmed by KesselsKramer, with the intention of communicating that football needn’t be so focused on competition. Instead, this sport that crossed all national boundaries could be viewed as a means of bringing people together in fellowship".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phIT4CD01GA

http://www.kesselskramer.com/communication/projects/the-other-final

Non-Football Recommendation of the Week

- Google Play Movies; Not satisfied with DVD's, your TV provider's movie offering, Netflix OR ye olde cinema? Well fear not, because now you have another alternative. Google Play Movies. Sayeth Google: "Watch your favorite movies and shows instantly on your Android phone or tablet, or on any HDTV using Chromecast. You can also download and watch from anywhere, even when you're not connected".

https://play.google.com/store/movies?hl=en

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

Football Circus Rides Again

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9sGobGkpj

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!!".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS2QqSQbjOQ

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!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9z7kzG5BcU

He's also found the time to front Puma's latest ad campaign, appropriately titled 'Troublemakers'. No better man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsXbcZ4bMpc

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

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.

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!

http://store.inter.it/en/

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHUBlv5_K8Y

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