Nuts for Brazil

So our hosting of Olympic football is now over and St James' Park reverts to its Jabba-given name, at least officially. Nine matches took place on Tyneside, the last two men's games featuring Brazil, with Saturday's exciting 3-2 comeback victory against Honduras witnessed by more than 42,000 spectators.

Neymar was among those on show in yellow on both occasions, scoring a penalty against Honduras, but he was arguably outshone by Internacional striker Leandro Damiao, who grabbed three goals over the course of the two games and also won the spot-kick for his side. Damiao - who scored twice again tonight as Brazil defeated Team GB's conquerors South Korea at Old Trafford to reach the final - continues to be linked with Spurs, but here's hoping that he and some of his teammates, like those visiting fans and journalists, took a shine to the stadium, the crowd and the city...

How to make friends and influence people

How? Simple: just host a few Olympic football games. Judging by this BBC article on the opening fixtures, international guests from as far afield as Mexico and South Korea have been falling over themselves to praise the city ("clean", apparently) and the stadium, officially back to being St James' Park for the duration of the event.

According to Swiss striker Innocent Emeghara, "[Newcastle] is a very beautiful city. It's not like London, I prefer Newcastle to London." Well said, that man - a good way to get the locals in the crowd on your side. Still, don't fancy the chances of anyone called Innocent remaining that way for long when in the vicinity of the Bigg Market...

It's Seneg-all looking rosier

Two unexpected boosts for our prospects for the forthcoming season. First, Papiss Cisse and Demba Ba been surprisingly omitted from the Senegalese squad to face Team GB and others in the Olympics (while Fat Sam's new West Ham signing Mohamed Diame has been selected - heh heh heh). And second, we now know that January's Africa Cup of Nations will only deprive us of either our striking pair or Mr T, not both, after Senegal were drawn against the Ivory Coast in the final qualifying round. A serious stroke of good fortune on both counts.