50 days to go to the World Cup

It’s 50 days to the World Cup and here are 50 of the biggest talking points.

1 Less than a year ago, after the Confederations Cup was marred by protests to the extent that some in the press box struggled to write at times as tear gas wafted their way, Fifa president Sepp Blatter admitted that maybe a mistake was made giving the World Cup to its most famous participant. If anything has changed since then it’s purely the reason behind the comment and not the comment itself. As of now, the protest problem can wait but stadia and other infrastructure cannot. Tick tock.

2 There are at least obvious reasons why building work has been playing catch-up since before a brick was laid. And like many issues relating to both Brazil and the competition itself, you need only look to politics. The nation unofficially knew it would be host in 2003 but head of Brazilian football, Ricardo Teixeira, didn’t want to irk the state confederations where his power lay, thus the 12 cities rather than the government’s preferred eight weren’t named until May 2009. As a nation, Brazil doesn’t tend to be quick about anything and a six-year delay always meant trouble.