A good start, but in Brazil it’s all about the finish

Rob Hughes – The New York Times, 06/16/2013

The Confederations Cup now playing in Brazil is window dressing. It is a rehearsal to test the host’s ability to stage next year’s World Cup in front of fans who have lived on memories for most of their lives.

Brazilians dream of Jogo Bonito, the Beautiful Game. They cannot escape the past, and not simply because the likes of Pelé and Tostão are commentators reminding them that things are not what they were in their day.

But maybe there is one player who can live up to their past.

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Brazil football protests continue for second day

Reuters -06/17/2013

Rio de Janeiro: Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds as protests marred a second successive day of the Confederations Cup football tournament in Brazil on Sunday.

Protesters tried to pass a police blockade outside Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana stadium where Mexico were playing Italy in the tournament, a run-through event for next year’s World Cup finals.

TV crews filmed police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd estimated by local media at around 600 people. “They were trying to negotiate with the protesters to retreat, I am a protester,” one man told Reuters TV.

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Brazil drums up business during Confederations Cup

Marco Sibaja -AP – 06/13/2013

Brazil hopes to generate $1 billion in export deals during the Confederations Cup, the warm-up tournament for the 2014 World Cup, the government said Wednesday.

The government’s Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency says it is using football as a way to bring foreign and local business representatives together during the two-week tournament that begins Saturday in Brasilia.

“We have top quality stadiums which, together with the high quality of Brazilian football and the country’s competitive and innovative companies, form a fantastic business platform,” Mauricio Borges, the agency’s president told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

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A year until the 2014 World Cup begins and Brazil’s unease is growing

Jonathan Watts – The Guardian, 06/11/2013

In the heart of Recife, a stadium pulsates with the cheers, chants and boos of more than 50,000 fans in belligerent, festive mood. Most are in their team colours, filling the ground with black, white and red, but a handful wear fancy dress: there’s an Elvis, Jesus, Superman, Centurion and Cobra (complete with giant plastic snake) adding to the carnival atmosphere already created by the batéria drummers and the pre-match barbecues and copious bottles of Skol.

The football is not bad either, with occasional touches of skill that would not be out of place at the highest level. Yet this is the home of Santa Cruz, a Serie C (third-division) Brazilian club from the north-east who claim the most devoted fans in the country, perhaps even the world. More often than not, this lowly team draw more fans than giants like Flamengo, Botafogo or Fluminense. For big derbies, attendances often outstrip those of Stamford Bridge or the Etihad.

But it is also in this heartland of Brazilian and world football that you can feel the greatest unease about the changes being wrought before next year’s World Cup finals. Violence, corruption, gentrification and the poor form of the national team have eroded confidence in Brazilian football, which is undergoing a painfully accelerated transition as a result of next year’s tournament. Attendances are down, violence is rampant, and the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) is fending off allegations of corruption, secrecy and mismanagement of the preparations for 2014.

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Countdown to World Cup 2014: Brazil desperate to exorcise the 1950 ghost

Alex Bellos – The Guardian, 06/11/2013

Brazil have won five World Cups and produced more great footballers than any other nation, and yet the match that is most deeply etched in the collective imagination is a defeat. “Everywhere has its irremediable national catastrophe, something like a Hiroshima,” wrote the playwright Nelson Rodrigues. “Our catastrophe, our Hiroshima, was the defeat to Uruguay in 1950.”

He was exaggerating, of course. But only just. Brazil’s failure to win the 1950 World Cup at home by losing 2-1 to their much smaller neighbours is a memory that refuses to go away – and for many casts a shadow over next year’s tournament.

With one year until Brazil hosts its second World Cup, the reason why a match that took place so long ago still resonates with people who were not even born is because of the crucial role football had in the construction of a modern Brazilian identity.

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Confederations Cup more than a dress rehearsal for Brazil

Mike Collet – Reuters, 06/07/2013

This month’s Confederations Cup is far more than just a straight dress rehearsal for next year’s World Cup finals because nothing is straightfoward as far as football in Brazil is concerned.

Controversies involving the government, FIFA, local sports bodies, construction companies, politicians and the police have hampered preparations since Brazil, the only candidate, was formally announced as World Cup host in October 2007.

The Confederations Cup, starting a year before the World Cup kicks off, will define, perhaps more off the field than on it, how prepared Brazil really is for the main event.

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Brazil: indigenous squatters living by Rio’s Maracana stadium resist eviction; police close in

AP/The Washington Post, 01/12/2013

Police in riot gear surrounded a settlement of indigenous people next to Rio de Janeiro’s storied Maracana stadium on Saturday, preparing to evict them as soon as an expected court order arrived.

The site commander, police Lt. Alex Melo, explained officers were “waiting for the order, and understand it can come at any time.”

But the order still had not arrived after a tense, daylong standoff. Frightened residents wondered why law enforcement came without an order to enter, and federal public defenders who have worked on the protracted legal battle over the space tried to mediate.

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Pele: Brazil ‘not ready’ for World Cup

Harry Harris – ESPN, 10/28/2011

Brazil legend Pele has expressed his concern to ESPNsoccernet that his home country is “not ready” to host the World Cup in 2014.

Pele cited chaotic organisation and communication difficulties as the biggest problems facing Brazil, and revealed he is now working with president Dilma Rousseff in a bid to get the World Cup finals back on track.

“Brazil is not ready,” said Pele. “Not yet, it is not ready. With the team we have no problem, it is easy.”

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Brazil’s World Cup rush fuels spending blowout

Stuart Grudgings – Reuters, 09/27/2011

It is a project that should symbolize the transformational benefits of hosting the 2014 World Cup — a sleek new monorail train gliding above Brazil’s steamy Amazon city of Manaus.

But Athayde Ribeiro da Costa has a different take on it.

With just under 1,000 days before the first ball is kicked, the chief public prosecutor in Amazonas state sees the monorail as part of a trend of overspending and poor planning as Brazil rushes to make up for a slow start to its preparations.

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New Maracana set to symbolise modern vibrant Brazil

Yahoo, 07/28/2011

Tourist guidebooks describe Rio’s vast Maracana Stadium as the most famous building in South America, but at the moment a more accurate description would be that it is the most famous building site.

According to local tourist officials, it is the second most visited place in Brazil after the statue of Christ The Redeemer and on a par with the Sugar Loaf mountain.

But with the 2014 World Cup and Rio’s 2016 Summer Olympics on the horizon, bulldozers, earthwork machinery, giant drilling equipment, cranes and a concentrated battalion of construction crew are feverishly working where once Pele and Garrincha displayed their sublime skills.

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