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.

3 So Brazil hasn’t been building bridges or much else to deadline. But when it has got its act together, on occasion it’s been knocking its handiwork back down. You can only imagine the faces at Fifa when in November the stadium that will host the opening game, the Itaquerao, saw a crane collapse into the side of a nearly-completed stand. Time has been made up but the tenant club, Corinthians, won’t hold a test league game until three weeks before Brazil take on Croatia there.

4 It has been far from the only worry on that front though. The Arena Pantanal in Cuiaba suffered such problems after an October fire that there were severe doubts if it would see any World Cup action. Meanwhile, the Arena da Baixada in Curitiba won’t be ready until mid-May after falling way behind its targets before strikes by unpaid electrical workers made matters worse. So much for that start-of-year deadline Fifa imposed. A start-of-tournament deadline would have been more fitting.

5 The latest stadium issue concerned the Estadio Beira-Rio in Porto Alegre. With huge financial shortfalls around temporary media structures, the city’s mayor, Jose Fortunati, gave an ultimatum. The taxpayer may have footed almost the entire €110m bill but he said unless tax exemptions were given to companies building those structures, there’d be no games there. GAA folk will wonder at this point why they didn’t just haul in a lorry trailer with a few school desks on the back of it.

6 It has all left Fifa rowing back and admitting even their constant prodding of the country hasn’t helped. This month Secretary General Jerome Valcke admitted: “Maybe there will be things which will not be totally ready at the beginning of the World Cup, but the most important thing for the 32 teams is the training camp and fields. All of this will be there to ensure you have football.”

7 But that’s part of the problem even a football-obsessed country has with all of this. For Fifa this is just about the matches, for everyone else here it’s about their lives. Literally in certain cases. Some say the pressure of deadlines are partly to blame for the six accident-related fatalities of stadia construction workers. Football isn’t a matter of life and death? Tell that to those families left behind.

8 The graffiti on the wall doesn’t say we’re magic, even so close to kick-off. Instead, in the cities here, the graffiti on the walls translate into phrases such as “Fifa plus Brazilian government equals shit lives for us”. If you step back and consider everything, it’s a sentiment that’s hard to argue with.

9 You wonder how much better those lives could have been had the World Cup never come to these shores. Grounds like the Arena da Amazonia in Manaus have cost around €200m and this in a city where over 20% of local houses don’t have proper plumbing.

10 Then there’s the transfer of money that’s taken place. Taxes have funded stadia and it just so happens that the construction industry is a major contributor to political campaigns. Call us cynical but…

11 On top of that, size really does matter. The aforementioned Arena da Amazonia has a capacity of 46,000 but the local football team that will take up tenancy are lucky to get four figures. It’s not an isolated case. The Mané Garrincha in Brasilia can hold more than 70,000 but once the circus moves out of town, in move lower-division Brasiliense who can struggle too to get 1,000. Essentially, this is the equivalent of our government building Croke Park-style arenas for League of Ireland clubs.

12 At the time of winning the hosting rights, then sports minister Orlando Silva said: “There won’t be one cent of public money used to build stadiums,” while the football confederation said no public money would be spent at all. Since then, over €11bn of almost exclusively taxpayers’ money has disappeared into the tournament.

13 It takes a lot to get Brazilians in a rage. Daily life here sees packed and overheated buses pass by with pictures on the outside of new, elaborate and hugely expensive government buildings — as if those boarding should be thankful for giving the already better off somewhere nicer to work. But the World Cup really has got people in a rage, which is an achievement in itself.

14 The protests were initially organised in the universities. A trip to the sprawling campus of the biggest university in the third city of Belo Horizonte tells you there’s plenty more to come. One student says: “I’m willing to die”. Another says if police try to stop their democratic right of taking to the streets during the tournament, “then they will die”.

15 They blame the police for the violence that has gripped cities over and over while the police blame them. Yes, there are trigger-happy security forces here but those protesting have been infiltrated by a so-called Black Bloc that sees anything capitalist as a target. And then, like the Dublin Riots of 2006, there are those who just see an excuse to wreak havoc in all of this.

16 Something’s got to budge on this count though. Brazil has drafted in an extra 70,000 security officers, bringing the total to 170,000 for the tournament. And this in a country where last year there were 1,890 police killings and where Secretary for Public Security, Jose Mariano Beltrame, has said of heavy-handed tactics in general: “You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

17 Given all that, the best case scenario for Fifa and the state is also the most likely scenario in terms of trouble. There will be riots but they’ll be kept well away from tourists and fans, and what they’ll get will be sanitised. What those who’ve paid for the World Cup will get will be anything but.

18 It’s easy to understand such anger. There’s a shortage of 168,000 physicians in Brazil; the gridlock in cities has resulted in a traffic jam reaching 192 miles in Sao Paulo; 15% of children under four live in areas where there is sewage running openly; many of those with little money scrimp to keep their kids away from public education; illiteracy averages 10%; some reports say that 13 million people are underfed; and a massive 21.8 people per 100,000 are murdered, making 42,785 per annum at the last body count. But hey, they’ve all got 12 shiny new stadia.

19 Granted, everyone will try and cash in on this. Most of the money will go to those with the best hotels and restaurants and bars, growing the social divide still further, but that doesn’t mean those worst off aren’t preparing. In Minas Gerais, prostitutes are availing of free English classes. “It’ll allow me to get ahead of the ones that aren’t bothering,” says one of those learning.

20 This may not be the people’s World Cup, but this still is the people’s team and winning the World Cup here is still the people’s dream. Many countries say they suffer from overpaid stars that see national duty as a holiday. But not Brazil. Even Neymar at the end of a game in South Africa this year tried to encapsulate the Brazilian attitude when a child broke through security and took to the field (it’s worth a watch). They care about their country and their country cares deeply about them.

21 Some of course care too much — or not at all depending on how you view crowd trouble. The vicious footage of the league game between Atletico Paranaense and Vasco Da Gama in December made its way around the world and, while not the rule, it’s not completely the exception either.

22 Going to club games in Brazil, it’s not uncommon for buses to be emptied on the side of streets and to see fans in a line on the ground while police stand over them with machine guns. Derby games can see city centre bars and restaurants closed and when there’s not a local rivalry, there’s a solution you won’t see in too many other places. Read on.

23 The ultra-style fans from many clubs have aligned into two broad groups of supporters. So if the day’s opposition are linked to your local rivals, then you’ve an excuse for a dust-up. But don’t expect visiting fans to experience any such trouble – once again see number 13.

24 Remember being stuck in school for a World Cup? Doing the Leaving Cert, the principal in Athy stuck his head into the English exam to tell the class that Robbie Keane had equalised against the Germans. No such issues here though as, despite the tournament falling in winter, schools close their doors for the month.

25 But if you think soccer is the main religion here, think again. The soap operas run five days a week and with prime time shows not ending until 10 o’clock, even the biggest midweek league games are shunted back until afterwards, meaning they don’t finish until close to midnight.

26 That doesn’t stop the fireworks going off across cities at such an hour though. Passion or insanity, you decide which one involves waking up neighbourhoods with miniature explosives because a club have got a late equaliser that sees them remain in mid-table. And you thought the vuvuzela was bad.

27 Then there’s a World Cup. And then there’s a World Cup on home soil. The last time the seleção hosted the tournament was in 1950 and chaos is an understatement. Around 200,000 crushed their way into the newly-built Maracana four hours before the de facto final with Uruguay while the mayor of Rio de Janeiro took a microphone while the team took the field and proclaimed them champions. But they lost and at least one person committed suicide in the stadium while others were reported to have done likewise across the country.

28 Brazil hasn’t forgotten that, nor will it forgive if it happens again.

29 They are favourites and on their side there’s the creativity of Neymar and Oscar as well as the sort of emotional wave that carried them to the Confederations Cup. On the other hand, if they do win it out, Jo and Fred would be the worst strike force for a triumphant nation since 1998. Then again, if Stephane Guivarc’h can lead a line to victory on home soil, literally anything’s possible.

30 Brazil’s coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, is often said to be a ringer for Gene Hackman. There’s one key difference though. Hackman isn’t on television nearly as much. Scolari right now is promoting everything from cars to soft drinks to pork products and, regardless of how Brazil do, he’ll have done extremely well out of all this.

31 Still, he’s not as bad as Pele, who somehow seems to be taking himself ever more seriously. Not long ago he referred to himself as ‘The King’ in one ad. But the latest, for yet another different product, sees him in a cape and crown sitting on a throne. He isn’t even joking in it.

32 Speaking of television, some programmes are already mimicking the neighbours with gags about ripping off Argentines in bars and what not. But they don’t laugh so much when they think of how good they really are. Argentina still have Messi, they thankfully don’t have Maradona this time around.

33 We all know World Cups on Latin American soil have belonged to South American sides. But is that merely down to those tournaments coinciding with great Brazilian and Argentinian teams as well as a time when it took months on a boat to get there. Or is there something more to it?

34 If there is something more, then outside of Brazil and Argentina there are other threats. Colombia are extremely good but how far they can go will depend on a post-injury Radamel Falcao. Uruguay are very good but how far they can go will depend on possibly a post-Premier League-winning Luis Suarez.

35 Often in these parts, great teams have been made up of great street players who learned their trade as a way of escaping their reality. In contrast, the real European challenge this time comes from three nations that have completely revolutionised their youth structure in recent years. It means they all have philosophies no other international team does and all have a real chance.

36 The first of those teams is Spain. The talent is still so good but their remarkable record begs the question of whether a champion can stay at the same level over such a long period?

37 The second of those teams is Germany. Here, the genuine question is bottle and whether for all that new coaching structures have brought, did they forget to bring their once-defining quality?

38 The third of those teams is Belgium. Look for reasons not to trust them all you want but the simple fact is they have huge strength in every area as well as one of the best and most exciting players in the world right now in Eden Hazard.

39 As for the best of the rest from Europe, they shouldn’t be good enough. Italy are tactically strong but creatively limited while the Dutch ooze attacking talent yet are very mechanical because international teams tend not to have time to develop fluency.

Crucially, Spain and Germany are the exception on that front because of the way they’re coached and also the club influence.

40 You can forget about England right now. There won’t even be much fun for those that like to cheer against them. Let’s try and be kind here — they are like a higher-class version of Giovanni Trapattoni’s Ireland. They are built for draws and you can be sure they won’t win a whole lot.

41 If only the 2006 or, better still, 2010 version of the Ivory Coast had got a group like they have this time around.

And while the 2014 version are still good enough to get through it, they aren’t the potentially great team they once were.

What should have been an amazing story went unwritten.

42 As for an outsider to cheer on, for those in Ireland, Bosnia should tick all the boxes. A warm and welcoming country struggling to emerge from post-war poverty that has suffered from an horrific and bloody recent past based largely around religion, that has made its first tournament and that has briefly forgotten all of its problems all because of a World Cup. Sound familiar?

43 All three of the nations that have massively influenced this vast land are present and correct. Portugal won’t be popular but Sao Paulo hosts the largest Japanese community outside of Japan while, also linked to post-World War II, parts of the south of Brazil actually look, sound and taste like Germany.

44 If you are coming here, that’s worth remembering. This isn’t like a trip to a country; it’s like a trip to a massively diverse and fascinating continent, from some snow in the south, through the farmlands, mines and rainforests, and on to the desert landscapes of the north-east.

45 If you are coming here, it’s worth remembering that it’s winter too. Bring your swimming trunks but bring a raincoat and some cold weather clothes as there’ll be times when you think you aren’t abroad.

46 If you are coming here, it’s likely you’ll be kept away from mass trouble, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be localised incidents. Carry cash, but not too much, don’t go wandering aimlessly back to a hotel after a night out, and generally just don’t be stupid. This can be paradise if you want, but it can also be a disgruntled, gun-happy place.

47 If you don’t have tickets for certain games, that shouldn’t be an issue. The best atmosphere can be away from the games themselves. It’s why during club action you see swathes of empty seats at grounds but there is a huge football culture around bars and barbeques.

48 And that introduces the often overlooked positives of Brazil and on that count the foreign media haven’t been fair in their comment. The Daily Mail had a furious article about the five-star England team hotel in Rio, citing anonymous TripAdvisor reviews. The Sun has run stories claiming both the hotel and England’s training ground were “dumps”. The Daily Express told its readers all the talk at the World Cup draw was of “violence, massed robberies and rapes”. Far away paranoia and vindictiveness to the point of xenophobia in all cases.

49 Sure, 20 years after winning it himself, Romario has summed up what the people of Brazil have gone through to provide the world with a party. “As much as we want the World Cup, the Brazilian people deserve respect, they don’t deserve this open abuse of their money... the much-discussed social legacy looks like it won’t get off the drawing board.”

50 But the Brazilian people deserve the respect of the rest of the world as well. So for the 50 more days look forward to it, for 32 days enjoy it, and thereafter try not to forget about what’s being left behind.