Our favourite things online this week: from Sussex football to Sochi's dogs

Featuring NFL team logos, synchronised swimming, when Zlatan Ibrahimovic tweeted Cristiano Ronaldo and bankrupt footballers.

1) Racing to save the stray dogs of Sochi

When will the Winter Olympics controversy end? First it was the massive cost, then the environmental concern, then the worry over Russia's anti-gay legislation and then the stories about how the government was planning to exterminate the city's stray dogs. Thankfully a Russian billionaire is ploughing some money into a dog shelter that is trying to save the strays, which would otherwise face the death sentence. David M Herszenhorn takes up the story for the New York Times.

2) Sussex football by David Bauckham

David Bauckham

 Photography:David Bauckham

David Bauckham has been publishing photos of lower-league football on his Flickr page since 2008 and this gallery from the ever-reliable In Bed With Maradona is a perfect starting point for anyone unfamiliar with his work. The man has an eye for a photo.

3) NFL team logos remixed with famous brands

Some people have too much time on their hands. But at least they make good use of it.

4) Zlatan Ibrahimovic tweets Cristiano Ronaldo

When Starbucks started putting people's names on cups and customers responded by posting pictures of misspellings online, some marketing genius at Nike must have taken notice and gone about concocting a plan to sell a few T-shirts. Sometimes you have to sit back and admire the genius and subtlety of advertising. That Ronaldo replied "Thank you for the birthday present @Ibra_official. It will look better on me than you though" carried that suspicious whiff of a marketing campaign. Either way, it's a lovely bow.

5) Dispatches: Hunted

This Channel 4 documentary lasts an hour, but you'll have seen enough of Sochi's vigilantes before the first ad break. It's essential, if harrowing, viewing.

6) The future is bleak

Andy Murray is Wimbledon champion, worth about £30m and can even expect some love in England these days, but life is not so rosy for tennis players lower down the rankings. As Paul Wachter puts it in this piece for Grantland: "Of all major professional sports, tennis is the cruelest to its non-stars." He proves his point by meeting some struggling players, who compete for prize money of $310 in front of a crowd of eight people. At least they're living their dream.

7) Medal predictions for every Winter Olympic competition

Sochi 2014: Meet Great Britain's 'fridge kids' going for Winter Olympics gold

Thursday 6 Feb 2014

Over the next 18 days, 294 Olympic medals will be handed out in Sochi. Most of them will go to Norwegians, Americans and Canadians, according to this predictions table from Brian Cazeneuve at Sports Illustrated. Great Britain may boast a selection of "fridge kids", but Cazeneuve reckons the team's best hopes are with the genteel sport of curling. If the summer Olympians win most of their medal sitting down, it probably fits that the winter team pick up their golds while sweeping the floor.

8) Mesmerisingly quiet photos of synchronised swimming

Synchronised swimming is all about movement, but this selection of stills on the Slate photoblog captures the peaceful nature of the sport. Jordan G Teicher runs the blog and is well worth following on Twitter – as is the photographer, Paul Schlemmer.

9) Sochi hotel guests complain about topless portraits of Putin in rooms

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prince Albert II of Monaco visiting Republic of Tuva

 A warm welcome from the Russia president. Photograph: Dmitry Astakhov /EPA

Visitors to Sochi have been bemused by the curious case of the city's double toilets. But, as Andy Borowitz points out in the New Yorker, it could have been much, much worse.

10) Day-by-day guide to the Winter Olympics

Get it bookmarked.

11) Football's lost fortunes.

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