The Circus - 26 May

The Circus pays tribute to the five-ringed variety

The Olympic Games kicked off with a match between novelty team Great Britain and real, actual countryNew Zealand in the women's football competition. 

The Circus would show you some highlights but, because the IOC makesFIFA look like a sit-in at Berkeley circa 1967, if we did Sebastian Coe would come around and go all English public school on us. And given all the late nights The Circus is about to have, it needs to be regular. 

Team GB triumphed 1-0 and in the absence of footage of the actual goal, here is how The Circus imagines it was scored: 

The local mobs, however, should make the most of their home appearance because 'Ebenezer' Blatter has poked his unwelcome head up and opined future appearances of the united team are unlikely due to FIFA qualification rules.

What, you run the Olympics too now, Sepp? Better hope Lord Coe doesn't find out or he'll be paying you a visit too. Unless that's your plan, of course.

Still, Teams GB is there at the moment and it is nice to see such camaraderie and mutual respect as expressed by Ryan Giggs.

The Welshman said Dame and athlete Kellie Holmes was inspiring the squad () to "embrace" things ... which, in Giggs's case, could make life in the athletes' village quite interesting.

The Australian teams also took their inspiration from a Dame; Dame Nellie Melba. Which explains why they were at their best last century and won't be making an appearance this time around.

LOCOG's low point

But not everything went as smoothly on the opening night of competition.

DPR Korea's women's team staged a walk-off after it was introduced to the crowd with a South Korea flag. And as The Daily Mail so helpfully points out: "South Korea and North Korea exist as neighbours but have a far from harmonious relationship."

The protest lasted 65 minutes, which is about the same time it takes to arm, launch and detonate a nuclear missile from Pyongyang to Seoul.

DPR Korea went on to win the game, defeating Colombia 2-0.

For the next match, it has demanded to be introduced alongside the flag of another well-loved neighbour, Japan.

RAD-elaide

The Circus finds it amazing that, in this age of information, any club could be duped by a fake player CV.

Perhaps, though, the information age is yet to reach South Australia.

Adelaide United spruiked its interest in USA star Dexter Rosales, who, among other things, had represented his country, played for Ajax, Valencia, River Plate and Club Atletico, and been guest conductor for a season of 'Pops' by the New York Philharmonic.

Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t he? Weird no one had ever heard of him before. Or perhaps not so weird as it turns out – you guessed it – Dexter is a figment of the imagination.

"We're not the first club to be given a false lead with a supposed trialist, but other clubs probably just don't promote it to the world like we did ... it doesn't look great from our end," said the Reds.

Quite.

Still, at least we know what Kevin Muscat has been up to in the off-season.

Spoken word

"Probably, I would want to do UFC – yeah, I really love it." – If he wasn't a footballer, Mario Balotelli says he would enjoy having the living suitcase kicked out of him by strange men:

Although, The Circus is guessing his UFC uniform would not be similar in design to Man City's new kit, given the level of enthusiasm he showed for it.