The Circus - 6 October

Impact player

The A-League season is but one game old and already Alessandro Del Piero and Emile Heskey are being trumpeted by the country's marketing heavyweights as our greatest imports since that promising fellow Adelaide United were going to get on trial. How is Dexter Rosales getting on, anyway? Word on the street was the kid could play.

Del Piero is already doing his best to apply the watering can to expectations, pointing out that he has had a limited pre-season and could be limited to a cameo appearance in Wellington tonight.

We can at least hope this will be the good sort of cameo, and not the sort demonstrated by this quick-thinking Brazilian physio ("It was reckless," he admitted afterwards. "I know that now").

Or the type of cameo performed by the crossbar during popular gymnast Thomas Vermaelen's floor routine against Olympiakos.

Cultural learnings

Gary Lineker is now so well known for advertising potato chips and soiling himself in service of queen and country that it's easy to forget the Match of the Day host was England's most prolific striker for eight years.

It's the vast reservoir of knowledge gleaned from his time on the global stage that gives Lineker the chops to anchor Al Jazeera's Middle East coverage of the Champions League. For instance, here's Lineker summing up Montpellier's opener at Schalke on Wednesday night, scored by Karim Ait-Fana, who is a Muslim.

Model news

Former Croatia Miss Sport finalist Tihana Nemcic says her appointment as coach of a Croatian men's team is no publicity stunt. Nemcic, who has played for Dinamo Zagreb's women's team, has taken the reins at NK Vojakovac Viktorija, in Croatia's north.

So far things are going well, no doubt helped along by Nemcic's system for avoiding any awkward changing room situations: "We have a rule. Boys go in to change. When they are finished, one of them comes out and calls me in." She has reported no problems keeping the players' focus on football during training sessions. "The guys listen carefully and do not create problems," Nemcic says. "Ours is a good team that wants to progress."

A bit of research

Monday's Arsenal press conference was the unremarkable sort. Half-hearted queries over whether Arsene Wenger had seen the incident - the usual. Then came the question for right-back Carl Jenkinson. "You look you up on the internet, do a bit of research, and it suggests your Dad was a professional singer. Is that right?"

Jenkinson's reaction is below. The suggestion was in fact one of a number of spoof 'little known facts' published on the 'Arseblog' Twitter account.

Research, indeed.

Little known fact: Carl Jenkinson's dad sang the 'Turn around' backing vocal in Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'.

— arseblog (@arseblog) September 24, 2012

The spoken word

"Nobody's nicer to gypsies than me. And I have nothing against blacks … sorry, African-Americans. I just don't sign blacks because they're not suitable. They don't play well in our weather."

Steaua Bucharest owner Gigi Becali is absolutely not racist.