Brazil face Argentina in Buenos Aires tonight in a crucial World Cup qualifying tie. Win or lose, however, Brazil’s future looks less than bright under unpopular manager Dunga. But, as James Young explains, the country’s footballing problems run much deeper than that – and it might just be the fault of the fans. 

By James Young
Belo Horizonte

“Brazil needs a coach with scientific knowledge, coupled with the wisdom to be a good observer and a desire to win, while playing attractively. Forget it! It was just a fantasy, and now it’s gone. The reality is quite different, and much sadder. The reality is Dunga,” wrote 1970 World Cup winner Tostão after the Seleção appointed its new manager after the World Cup. And not much Carlos Caetano Bledorn Verri had done since has proved him wrong.

Sure, there were a few perky friendly victories between the Mundial and this year’s Copa America in Chile. In those games Brazil at least looked energetic and organised, and were certainly an improvement on the doleful lot who succumbed so humiliatingly to Germany in Belo Horizonte in the World Cup semi-final. But, Neymar aside, the lack of attacking flair and creativity was painfully obvious. Dunga’s Brazil were a counter-attacking side, the long, symphonic passing movements of old a fading memory.

Still, those effective, if unappealing friendly wins seemed like the glory days compared with Brazil’s performances in Chile. Dunga’s team were turgid throughout the tournament, losing to Colombia and only squeaking past Peru and Venezuela in the group stages, before getting knocked out by Paraguay in the quarter-finals.

Things have not improved much since then. Brazil were no match for Chile and Alexis Sanchez in their opening World Cup qualifying game in Santiago, and were unimpressive again in a win over Venezuela in Fortaleza. Now, Dunga’s side travel to Buenos Aires to face the old enemy Argentina – themselves struggling for form after a miserable start to the qualifying campaign.

Dunga, with his thuggish pitch-side manner and aggressive approach to dealing with the media, makes an easy cartoon villain. But perhaps the most worrying thing for Brazilian fans is the lack of alternatives. The hire ‘em, fire ‘em short term thinking of the country’s clubs means that talented young managers are an endangered species in Brazil. Dunga is the symptom, rather than the cause of the disease that ails Brazilian football.

It was reported this week that of the twenty coaches who began the Serie A season back in May, only two – unsurprisingly, Tite at Corinthians and Levir Culpi at Atletico Mineiro, the country’s top two teams – were still standing by its end. It was the lowest number since 2005.

In the last few weeks alone, with the season just a few games from its end, coaches were sacked by Coritiba and Avaí (both fighting relegation) and São Paulo (trying to finish in the top four and earn a spot in next year’s Copa Libertadores).

The stumbling explanation for the sacking of manager Doriva from São Paulo director of football Gustavo Vieira de Oliveira gave a rather chilling insight into the thinking, or the lack of it, that goes on behind the scenes in Brazilian football. “From his performance in this short period of time, and the observations we’ve made of his work, we don’t see anything wrong, but we want to try something else.” Doriva had been in charge for seven games and just over a month.

A report by the Mexican publication El Economista last year revealed that coaches in Brazil last just 15 games on average, compared to around 54 in Germany, 80 in England, and 88 in Major League Soccer. In the ten year period covered by the survey, at least four clubs had employed close to 40 coaches – or four a year.

Such impatience has two obvious negative outcomes. One is a lack of understanding and cohesion on the pitch. While Corinthians and Atlético Mineiro this year, and Cruzeiro in 2013 and 2014 have played intense, fast-paced football, with the ball (generally) moving quickly from boot to boot, such collective awareness is rare.

Most Brazilian league games are cumbersome affairs, with players taking a touch (often two) to control the ball before pausing and looking around in search of a teammate. The telepathic awareness of others’ movement and positioning that comes from playing in the same system over a long period, best typified in recent years by Barcelona, is an elusive dream.

The other consequence is that the confidence, willingness to experiment, and ultimately careers of promising young coaches are destroyed. Dado Cavalcanti, manager of Serie B side Paysandu, has coached 15 clubs in nine years – before his 35^th birthday. After doing well at Avaí in 2008 and 2009, Silas managed Grêmio for eight months, and was then sacked by Flamengo after just over a month in charge. In 2012 Grêmio sacked Caio Junior, who had coached an impressive Botafogo team in 2011, after just eight games in charge.

As a result, coaching jobs at the biggest Brazilian clubs tend to go to the same old faces, such as Muricy Ramalho, Dorival Junior (admittedly currently doing well with Santos), Celso Roth and Vanderlei Luxemburgo. One of the names mentioned in connection with the vacant position at São Paulo is Paulo Autori, who has coached close to 40 teams and has won nothing of note in the last ten years.

Even Brazil’s best coaches are flawed. Corinthians’ Tite is the current toast of Brazilian football, but he has had a long and chequered career, and favours a prosaic style of football that is not always easy on the eye. Atlético Mineiro’s Levir Culpi and Marcelo Oliveira, who did so well at Cruzeiro and now manages Palmeiras, while attack minded coaches, can be tactically naive.

All of which goes some way to explaining why, when the CBF (“the Brazilian FA”) ran out of patience with Mano Menezes as Brazil coach in 2012, they turned, with ultimately disastrous results, to Luiz Felipe Scolari (who managed the team in 2001 and 2002) and, following Scolari, appointed Dunga (who had coached the Seleção between 2006 and 2010).

Brazil’s club directors and football administrators are largely to blame for the situation. Club presidents and their posses, who more often than not lack the clear-headed professionalism and conviction required to maintain a long-term strategy, are democratically elected, meaning they depend on the approval of the fans to keep their jobs. And if the team is losing, that approval will disappear very quickly.

Which means, by a rather ironic twist, that as much as Brazilian fans may loathe Dunga, they may be at least partly responsible for him getting the job in the first place.

By howling for the head of their coaches after just a handful of defeats – the torrents of social media abuse aimed at Atlético manager Levir Culpi now his team’s bid to win the title seems to have fallen short are only one example – they fuel the atmosphere of impatient, hysterical short-termism that pervades the Brazilian game and that is a direct cause of the country’s dearth of coaching talent.

Win or lose in Buenos Aires tonight, it is Brazilian football that is paying the price.

Brazilians’ love for soccer has been exploited by crooks, dictators, and dirty politicians for decades. Above, dictator Emilio Médici celebrates after his country’s 1970 World Cup victory.

By Mauricio Savarese

When former Brazilian soccer boss José Maria Marin was arrested in Switzerland at the end of May, most fans here just knew him as the old guy that stole a medal from a teenage player in 2012. His predecessor, Ricardo Teixeira, was a much more famous figure, famously involved in various corruption scandals. But as the media dug deeper into the 83-year-old Marin’s career, it became clear that the frail man who chaired Brazil’s football confederation (the CBF) during last year’s World Cup was one more example of how politics and football work hand in hand in Brazil.

But it’s been that way for a long time. Let’s take a walk down memory lane.

Rocky start

Brazilian politicians didn’t fall in love with soccer at first sight. Soccer and politics became entwined here just weeks before the 1950 World Cup, as Brazilians took to the streets in protest.

They didn’t demonstrate against high costs in the construction of Maracanã stadium, but small protests before the first World Cup in Brazil did have something in common with protests here in 2013 and 2014. They started against a rise in transportation costs, and then the tournament served to put a spotlight on the demonstrations and the issues they raised, such as economic policy changes undertaken by President Eurico Gaspar Dutra (1946-1951), the man who brought the tournament to Brazil. One year later, former dictator Getulio Vargas would channel that frustration and win a democratic election.

With only 13 participants, the first World Cup in Brazil, seen by many as a test event for the country after World War II (1939-1945) was an organizational success. But the shocking loss to Uruguay in the final was felt as a failure of the country itself. Many politicians decided to stay away from football as a result, with the exception of some that were fans first and public figures second – such as São Paulo mayor Porfirio da Paz, a founder of São Paulo FC.

The rise of Brazilian football, and the rise of Brazil

When Brazil won the 1958 World Cup, however, politicians changed their minds. President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-1961), a former player at América in Minas Gerais, used the iconic players as a symbol of the modernization of the country – as he also used bossa-nova music and the construction of the new capital, Brasília. Brazilian soccer was moving past the shame of the 1950 loss and the country now actually had high hopes for the future.

That sentiment only grew after a second title was won in Chile, in 1962. But then the military dictatorship came, and took soccer with it.

In the first years of the regime, which began in 1964, it wasn’t clear what would happen with soccer, or indeed with politics.

Brazil had its worst World Cup campaign ever in England 1966, where the country failed to even advance past the group stage. Pelé, the national hero, was injured by Portugal’s constant kicks.

In Brasília, the capital, military leaders couldn’t decide whether they would remain in office. Their excuse for the coup was always that they would free Brazil from alleged communist influence and President João Goulart (1961-1964) and hold new elections, but they were holding on to power. Football club executives were lost: they didn’t know whether to be friends with the generals or hold on to old ties.

The dictatorship takes control of the pitch

Generals sent mixed messages by keeping Congress and a functioning Supreme Court open while also interfering. But when they decided to remain in power definitively and issued the dictatorial decrees of 1968, they also took hold of Brazilian soccer as a propaganda tool.

CBF chairman João Havelange, a cheerleader of military administrations, was watching. Although he named communist journalist João Saldanha as coach Brazil in 1969 (a move to calm the press after a number of bad results), Havelange was dying to please dictator Emilio Médici (1969-1974).

Opportunity knocked. Médici wanted “Fearless João” to take clumsy centerforward Dadá Maravilha to the Mexico World Cup in 1970.

Coach Saldanha wouldn’t have it. “I don’t pick his ministers and he doesn’t pick my players.” As a replacement, Havelange chose Mario Zagallo, a two-time World Cup champion who was present in the 1950 tragedy as a young Army recruit. The dictator Médici, a violent man that the Flamengo crowd loved seeing in the Maracanã every now and then, got even more attention from the CBF – military personnel dominated Brazil’s preparation for the tournament: fitness coaches, junior executives, and travel organizers, were all linked to the Armed Forces.

The dictatorship supported that Seleção, or national team, so much that Brazil’s leftist and liberal militants promised to cheer against it. But those people, unlike Médici, were only human…they ended up cheering anyways. The 1970 team was so fantastic that dictatorship propaganda is now the last thing most Brazilians think of it. Upon their return, friends of the armed forces were all over the players – São Paulo’s appointed mayor Paulo Maluf even gave them Volkswagens.

And Medici remained popular for a while, but the dictators would soon find out that you can’t win a World Cup every day.

White elephants to prop up the military, and the fall

There were two political parties in Brazil’s fake democracy in those days: Arena (the National Renewal Alliance) to support the military and MDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement), which brought together all kinds of opposition parties, from socialists to free-market liberals. They competed for seats in Congress and for a few mayoral positions – but never in large capitals, of course.

Wherever friends of the dictatorship couldn’t gather much popular support, soccer was the solution: a new stadium would pop up and a local team would be included in national tournaments. Many white elephants were inaugurated at the time, such as the Castelão in Fortaleza (1973) and the Mané Garrincha in Brasilia (1974). They would be later renovated to become brand new white elephants for the 2014 World Cup.

It was during the dictatorship that now-disgraced Marin first appears in Brazilian soccer as an executive. Formerly a mediocre player for São Paulo FC, he used a position in the club as a ladder to his political aspirations. In 1975, as a very conservative state congressman in São Paulo, he started a campaign against journalist Vladimir Herzog, a key editor at Cultura, the state-owned TV channel. Weeks later Herzog, was killed by those who tortured him in prison. Herzog’s family holds Marin responsible, among others, for the assassination to this day.

This was the beginning of the end for dictators Ernesto Geisel (1974-1979) and João Figueiredo (1979-1985). Geisel didn’t profit much from soccer, but he did try hard. Brazil was defeated in the 1974 World Cup by Holland and in 1978 by Argentina, then ruled by an even more violent dictatorship. Brazil’s economic miracle was proving to be a farce and the regime decided to inflate soccer’s first division to maintain some of its popularity.

That move would lead stars like Zico, Falcão and Socrates travel to small towns to please crowds. The number of clubs playing in the Brazilian championship from 1975 to 1979 rose year after year: 44, 54, 62, 74 and then an astonishing 94. And though generals stayed in control of the CBF, Brazil without Pelé wasn’t as big of a propaganda machine. When the Seleção became great again, in 1982 already under Figueiredo, it was filled with pro-democratic players and captained by activist Socrates.

The end of Marin

After his time as a São Paulo legislator that pushed against allegedly communist journalists, Marin took another job he didn’t get a single vote for: he became governor of São Paulo between 1982 and 1983, appointed by the dictatorship, at the same time he was the president of São Paulo’s soccer association. But when Brazil became a democracy again, in 1985, he had no trouble adapting: he spearheaded the Seleção organization for the Mexico World Cup. When Ricardo Teixeira took over the CBF in 1989, he was one of his vice-presidents. In 2012, after his tutor got in trouble with Swiss courts, he rose to the top, since he was the oldest on the job.

In the 13 years he spent as CBF vice-president, in a more and more democratic Brazil, Marin was very discreet; to Brazilian ears he sounded like a politician from the sixties. Yes, he is a man of soccer and politics, but he wasn’t nearly as popular as club officials that got to Congress to get better kickbacks from sponsors, or businessmen that bought clubs to launder money for political campaigns. He was surely no Teixeira, who managed to turn President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva from a critic into a whiskey buddy on lazy Brasília Saturday afternoons.

Marin is one of the survivors that used old political ties to remain connected to soccer — ties that stopped former guerrilla and now President Dilma Rousseff from taking pictures near him. In prison, he must be thinking of all the favors he made to connect his successor and right arm at CBF, new president Marco Polo del Nero, to the main leaders of the opposition, such as defeated presidential hopeful Aécio Neves. Too bad his long experience with Brazilian politics and soccer won’t be of much use with the FBI.

Mauricio Savarese is a freelance journalist based in São Paulo and co-author of A to Zico: an Alphabet of Brazilian Football

For years, crime, classism and old habits have kept Brazil’s well-to-do away from the messy reality of the country’s streets. But the World Cup, and now, anger at the government, have brought them back onto the scene.

By James Young

“Go downtown?* Are you crazy! It’s far too dangerous!” (*Or “Go to the football” or “Take the bus”).

The refrain, usually uttered by upper middle class Brazilians, is familiar to many foreigners coming to live in the country. Worried by eye-popping murder rates (according to WHO figures, there were over 64,000 homicides in Brazil in 2012) and alarmed at the thought of a naïve gringo or gringa ending up in a darkened alley, such over-protectiveness on the part of the locals was arguably understandable.

Yet an additional subtext lay behind such fears. For years, driven indoors by the levels of violence of the society that surrounds them, Brazil’s upper classes have hidden from public life, seeking refuge in gated communities and behind the high walls of luxury apartment buildings, in shopping malls and expensive restaurants. The result was that with some exceptions (the beaches of Leblon or Ipanema, or the metro system of São Paulo, for example) the country’s public spaces – the streets, public transport networks, football stadiums, even large parts of the carnaval celebrations of a number of cities, became the near-exclusive redoubt of less well-off Brazilians.

Now, however, things may be changing. Brazil’s upper social classes appear to be stirring.

The long-established polarization of Brazilian society came to the fore recently amidst the toxic atmosphere that surrounded the presidential elections, notably in the form of frustrated PSDB supporters attacking PT voters for being “ill-informed” and dependent on welfare programs such as bolsa familia. Although the fault lines were in fact blurred, many chose to see the contest between Dilma Rousseff and Aecio Neves as a straight poor Brazil vs. rich Brazil battle.

But as this blog explored previously, Brazil’s class divisions are more complex, not helped by the bewildering array of definitions and terms used to describe social class. According to figures released by the government’s Strategic Matters Department in 2012, the country can be divided into eight social classes – three of which are described as poor or vulnerable, three of which are defined as middle class, and two of which are upper class.

Such definitions reflect the rise of Brazil’s so-called nova classe media (“new middle class”), who, according to the government, earn between R$291 (currently U$90) and R$1019 (U$317) per capita a month and represent over 50% of the population, their numbers boosted by those moving out of poverty as a result of (now stalled) economic growth, an increased minimum wage and social benefit programs.

In recent years the nova classe media has been touted as Brazil’s rising demographic and economic star. The newfound spending power of its members boosted the economy, and suddenly Brazil’s new middle classes were everywhere – from the country’s airports (traditionally another upper class fortresses) to its TV screens. Brazil’s novelas (soap operas) had always been dominated by characters drawn from the wealthy of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, with the occasional token storyline given over to poorer Brazilians, and usually played for laughs. That changed in 2012 with Avenida Brasil, described by many as a “Classe C novela”.

At the same time, much of the nova classe media is far from any middle class that northern European or North American readers would recognize. A family of four in the middle of the government’s scale would have an income of around R$2,600 (U$850) per month, perhaps enough to buy a flat screen TV, smart phone or small car on a lengthy purchase plan, but hardly sufficient to move into an upmarket part of town. Plenty of Classe C (another term used for the nova classe media) neighborhoods in the periferias of Brazil’s major cities, particularly in the nordeste of the country, are unsafe, lack basic sanitation services and have unpaved roads.

Now, it seems, it’s again time for Brazil’s upper classes to grab the spotlight, and the coming out party of the classes altas was last summer’s World Cup. Whereas Brazil’s run-down football stadiums had previously been seen by many better off Brazilians as dangerous no-go areas, ruled over by the notorious torcidas organizadas (there have been at least 234 football related deaths in Brazil in the last 25 years), the expensive tickets and safe, comfortable World Cup arenas, meant that the Copa, in terms of Brazilian fans at least, became a very upper middle class affair. Throughout the tournament the stadium jumbotron TV screens showed images of shiny-toothed, wealthy looking fans beaming into the cameras, and a Datafolha survey of the crowd during Brazil’s 7-1 humiliation against Germany found that 90% were from Brazil’s upper classes, and only 9% were Classe C.

And then there is carnaval. While the profile of foliões (“revelers”) varies from city to city (“carnaval has always been about the people in the street and the rich on their verandas” MPB legend Gilberto Gil has said of the festivities in Salvador), two of the most notable developments of recent carnaval celebrations have been the popularity of blocos da rua (“street parties”) in São Paulo, particularly in the upper middle class neighborhood of Vila Madalena, and the growth of the festival in Belo Horizonte. For years the main carnaval in Brazil’s third biggest city took place in a grotty outer suburb, but this year over a million people celebrated across the city, with many blocos attracting crowds of wealthier Brazilians.

Brazil’s largest upper class explosion came just two weeks ago, however, when anywhere from a few hundred thousand to 1.7 million (estimates vary wildly) people took to the streets to protest against political corruption and president Dilma Rousseff’s government. There had been similarly large scale demonstrations during the Confederations Cup in 2013, but the profile of the crowd then (young and middle class), was markedly different to those that took to the streets this month.

At the protest in Belo Horizonte’s leafy Praça Liberdade, for example, the vast majority of the 25,000 or so demonstrators seemed to be drawn from the city’s upper social classes. Most were wearing Brazil football shirts and sunglasses, and chatted happily as they waved placards calling for the impeachment of Rousseff. There were plenty of family groups, and several residents of the expensive apartment buildings nearby had brought their Pekingeses or Shih-Tzus along for a walk. Afterwards, the bars and restaurants of the entertainment district of Savassi were filled with people tucking into hearty lunches after a tough morning’s protesting. As at least one site has noted, it was sometimes hard to tell if it was a political protest or a World Cup match. Meanwhile a survey of the 100,000-strong demonstration in the southern city of Porto Alegre found that over 70% of the crowd earned more than six times the minimum monthly wage.

At the same time, the surprisingly large scale of events means that disparagingly classifying the protests as solely the raging of Brazil’s burguês (“bourgeois”) or elite branca (“white elite”) is unlikely to tell the whole story – frustration with the country’s governing classes runs far deeper than that.

The debate over the return of Brazil’s upper classes to the streets and football stadiums, like the rise in visibility of Classe C before it, has once more brought to the surface the simmering class tensions that underlie the country’s society. Class boundaries in Brazil may be blurring, but its social divisions, and the fear and loathing that surrounds them, are as marked as ever.

The very fun World Cup confounded expectations while exposing some deep truths. Was it all worth it?  Above, dismantling the extra seats at São Paulo’s Itaquerão Stadium.

James Young
Belo Horizonte

It is January. The foreign journalist sits at his desk in London (or New York or Berlin) and thinks about the World Cup. The foreign journalist is not happy. The foreign journalist is worried. The foreign journalist is angry. The stadiums are not ready, he hears, and even if they were, the traffic and the public transport network in Brazil is such a seething mess that he and his fellow foreign journalists would not be able to get from their expensive hotels to the matches anyway. People say the hundreds of thousands of protestors who took to the streets last June will back in five months’ time, and that there will be more of them, and that they will be more furious and more violent. “It’s the World Cup of chaos!” he writes, and leans back in his chair, pleased with his work.

At the same time the foreign journalist knows none of this is important. What is important is o povo Brasileiro – the Brazilian people. The foreign soccer journalist loves the Brazilian people. He cares about them – about their terrible public schools and hospitals, the high taxes they must pay, their capering, corrupt politicians. One of those politicians, the president Dilma Rousseff, says it will be the Copa das Copas – the best World Cup of them all. “Who is she trying to kid?” writes the foreign journalist, his fingers banging on his keyboard with ever increasing rage.

It is June. The foreign journalist is sitting at a bar on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro. A caipirinha glistens icily on the table in front of him. He gazes at the milky green ocean and the depthless blue sky. He feels the warmth of the sun on his bare toes. As he watches, a Brazilian woman walks past. He stares at the lustrous dark shank of her hair and the soft coppery skin of her arms and legs – it almost seems to glow!, he thinks to himself, making a mental note not to forget the image. The woman smiles at him. Such friendly people!, thinks the foreign journalist. He sips his caipirinha and remembers the thrilling tumble of goals he saw while watching the Netherlands v Spain in Salvador a couple of days before. “It really is the Copa das Copas!” he thinks. He raises his glass to Dilma, and to Brazil.

Such bipolarity is not the foreign journalist’s fault, of course. To dip into touristic cliché, Brazil is an intoxicating, embracing country of sunshine, smiles and sensuous, bewitching rhythms. And the World Cup was, for the most part, far more exciting and goal-drenched than any such multi-billion dollar, corporate-sponsored modern soccer tournament has any right to be. Even the final between Germany and Argentina, normally a bitter, bickering affair, was open and enthralling.

The stadiums did not fall down – though two, the Arena das Dunas and the Arena de São Paulo, hosted games without proper safety certificates (the former) or being tested to full capacity (the latter). The airports did not collapse under the strain of transporting thousands of fans across this vast country (though overall passenger numbers were 4% lower than they were for the month before the Copa, Brazil’s aviation authorities have said, as business travelers and non-World Cup tourists postponed their trips until after the tournament).

The traffic was not as apocalyptic as threatened, even if that was largely the result of the country’s traditional mid-year school holidays being moved forward to coincide with the World Cup, eradicating the horrors of the school run, while public holidays were declared on match days in many cities. In the end, no one died – apart from the eight construction workers who lost their lives to accidents during stadium building work, and the two Brazilians who were killed when a road bridge, part of an unfinished World Cup urban infrastructure project, collapsed in Belo Horizonte (needless to say, as a nation swooned into a collective crisis after a young soccer player cracked a vertebrae, an injury from which he will soon recover, there was not even the suggestion that a minute’s silence might be held before games to honor such deaths).

Brazil is a country where many still live below the government’s extreme poverty line of less than $32 per month, and where there were a dizzying 50,000 murders in 2012. Stress levels among Brazil workers are the second-highest in the world, according to a report last year by the International Stress Management Association, which rather punctures the image of Brazilians as beaming girls or boys from Ipanema, samba-ing down the beach in tiny bikinis or sungas (the snug fitting beachwear of choice for local males) while effortlessly juggling a soccer ball on their toes. While the media (both local and international) shrieked with delight over the avalanche of goals during the group stage of the Copa das Copas, before declaring with equal drama that Brazil had been plunged into mourning after being dismantled so humiliatingly by Germany in the semi-final, the majority of locals I spoke to in a non-interview scenario during the tournament about (a) the World Cup and (b) Brazil’s elimination responded roughly as follows:

1. “I haven’t watched that many games because I’ve been at work, but it seems like it’s been pretty good.”

2. “Yeah, it’s a shame. This Brazil team is shit. The players are all money grabbers who care more about their careers in Europe than the national team. But really I’m more interested in [insert local club of choice].”

In other words, the reaction of people who are impressed and intrigued by the fact that an entertaining sporting competition is taking place in their backyard, and angry about the crappy performance of their team, but also of people who, quite frankly, have more important things to worry about.

The Mineiraço was not the Maracanazo (Brazil’s historic, and allegedly psychologically scarring defeat to Uruguay in the final game of the 1950 World Cup at the Maracana) because Brazil is a very different country now to what it was then. Back then this relatively young nation was still coming to terms with its identity as a multi-racial society (slavery had only been officially abolished in 1888), and wrestling over the idea of whether a nation built on miscegenation could ever really amount to much – the complexo vira lata, or “mongrel complex”, described by renowned sportswriter and dramatist Nelson Rodrigues. As the historian David Goldblatt writes in his book on Brazilian soccer and history, Futebol Nation, after the Seleção lost to Hungary in the violence scarred quarter-final of the 1954 World Cup, “the official report continued to cast the problem in terms of miscegenation: “The Brazilian players lacked what is lacking for the Brazilian people in general…The ills are deeper than the game’s tactical system…They go back to genetics itself.””

Today things are much different, although racial segregation is still rife, with the country’s exclusive leisure clubs, expensive restaurants and shopping malls (and World Cup stadiums) generally populated by wealthier, paler-skinned Brazilians, and the public hospitals, schools and working class jobs and neighborhoods filled largely by their poorer, most often darker complexioned countrymen (a recent survey showed that black Brazilians earn 36% less than their non-black counterparts). Nonetheless, led at least in part by black or mixed-race soccer players, from the country’s first superstar, Arthur Friedenreich, to Leonidas da Silva, at least today’s Brazil is no longer in any doubt that on and off the pitch its present and future success will be the result of, rather than despite of, its rich racial heritage.

Now – after the teams and the foreign fans and journalists have gone home, the real debate over the success of the World Cup can begin – the benefits and costs totted up, the long term future of the stadiums discussed (Brazilian club soccer returned to action this week, with many Mundial stadiums not even half-full), and lessons over the painful preparations for the event hopefully learned. 

The Cup went well enough that we finally got to focus on the soccer for a few weeks. Now, it’s back to the real problems.

Vincent Bevins
Rio de Janeiro

Since early May, and really, since June 2013, we’ve seen the meaning of the World Cup shift radically, many times. Before it all started, the questions were “Is this going to happen?” and, “Will Brazil hate their own World Cup?” We thought it would probably be fine, but many thought otherwise.

Then it started, and the mood in the country was “Wow, this is going pretty well.” By week two, it was time for the World Cup optimists and government supporters to declare victory, as well as to say “I told you so.” But in the last two weeks of the tournament, another shift took place, to a theme which never should have been surprising.

Lo and behold, this was actually a soccer tournament. After the Brazil-Chile game, few were talking about organization, or protests, or the effect on the election (except for die-hard partisans with blogs/Twitter accounts). People have been talking about the games – Brazil snuck by Colombia, and then was massacred by Germany. Costa Rica almost made it past the Netherlands, who were eliminated in an unimpressive semi by Argentina. How did Germany get to be the best? How does Brazil need to change its training to be more like them? These have been the issues. Soccer issues – finally.

To mix sporting metaphors, the World Cup should have been a slam drunk for Brazil. It should have been incredibly easy to prepare 8 venues well in advance of the June start date, and then simply to allow the interaction between foreigners and Brazilians to flourish in the streets and the magic to take place on the pitch. It’s a lovely country, and it’s a lovely tournament. There was no need to complicate things.

But it seems the government promised too much, both to its population and the all-important companies who pay for political campaigns here, and then seek profits from large construction projects. A World Cup, as it turns out, is not that complicated of an event. But Brazil’s government choose to pretend that an entirely new country would be delivered to its common people in time for kickoff. That backfired badly.

As it happened, the World Cup was a success. The fact that we could stop talking about logistical breakdown or mass protests is evidence of that. But it was only a success after exposing some of Brazil’s deep social problems, and damaging Brazil’s reputation a bit, at least for a while.

It will be two years before sports is the main focus again, when the 2016 Olympics start. In the meantime, it’s back to the real issues, a a bruising election and the bruising that Brazil’s military police seem to eager to hand out to anyone who gets in their way. If you haven’t seen it, check out the video of a cop brutally assaulting a Canadian documentary filmmaker at a protest Sunday.

The soccer is over. That was a kick to the face, not to a football. Back to the real problems.

A testing route to the final lies ahead, with Colombia up next. The players and coach Luiz Felipe Scolari have at times looked unnerved by the pressure and emotion of playing a World Cup at home, with captain Thiago Silva crying before even taking the field against Croatia, and Scolari growling at journalists in the press conference that followed the Mexico game.

The World Cup will not fall apart if Brazil are eliminated, but there is no doubt that those Brazilians caught up in the patriotic fervor currently swirling around the country (encouraged in no small part by a rash of tub-thumping TV commercials) might take a rather dimmer view of the tournament should the unthinkable happen and Brazil are knocked out.

World Cup melting pot

In a country where even the most erudite publications and media outlets continue to use the word gringo as a catch-all for foreigners of every stripe, and where the world is seemingly divided into Brazilians and non-Brazilians, the arrival of hundreds and thousands of visiting fans has been an eye-opening experience. It is unlikely, in fact, that Brazilians have ever had quite such an opportunity to observe the rest of the world up close.

For the most part those fans have done themselves proud, supporting their teams loudly, passionately and in many different ways. Stadiums have echoed to the sound of throaty, old-school and defiant English fans (who amusingly refused to participate in such frivolity as “the wave”) and raucous, flare-waving Algerians. Hordes of Argentinians have invaded the Maracanã and the Beira-Rio in Porto Alegre, singing about why Maradona is better than Pelé. An army of Mexicans have made Julio Cesar and the rest of the Brazil team feel that as though they were playing at the Estadio Azteca and not the Estadio Castelão. There have been American frat boys and swaggering Germans drinking together in rain-lashed Recife. Thousands of boisterous Colombians have swamped Belo Horizonte and multitudes of Chileans have taken over Copacabana. In general, all this cross-border intermingling has passed off peacefully. The world has come to Brazil and been made to feel welcome. Perhaps, in return, the host country has learnt a little bit about the world beyond its borders.

U.S.-Brazil relations are still strained due to allegations of high-level NSA spying and corporate espionage. In the unlikely event that the US team makes a strong showing at the World Cup this year, how would Brazilians respond? Any chances of success hinge on today’s game against Portugal.

Nathan Walters
Rio de Janeiro

I am always surprised when I ask Brazilians which team will win the World Cup, and the answer is not a quick and emphatic “Brazil, of course.” Most weigh the possible outcomes: the usual suspects Holland and Germany can’t be ruled out (just a few days ago Spain was also on the list); Belgium could do something amazing. I always find this strange because whenever anyone asks for my forecast I invariably say “The United States, of course.”

The response is usually greeted with laughter (sometime more than is really called for), and then a short explanation of why this is not possible.

Granted, even the (German) U.S. men’s team coach Jurgen Klinsmann [pictured above] doesn’t think his team can win the Cup. Though this may seem un-American considering US fascination with highly improbable situations, especially when it comes to sports, Klinsmann is probably right.

The team landed in the “Group of Deadliest Deathly Death,” and even if it manages to advance to the final 16, the level of play will only prove more challenging. No problem. U.S. teams are known for miracles, such as the 1980 U.S. men’s hockey team’s Miracle on Ice, and Brazil is a country where miracles are known to happen. The Brazilian economic Miracle of the 1970s is still fresh in the minds of many Brazilians.

So the setting could even be perfect for a legendary upset by the U.S. squad that would most certainly go down in history as the “Miracle at Maracanã” or “Only a Dream in Rio” (with James Taylor intro music opening every ESPN segment analyzing the victory).

After the U.S. men’s team hard-fought Monday night 2-1 win over nemesis Ghana, I found myself thinking more about what a U.S. miracle victory in Brazil might mean for the relations between the two countries.

The U.S. and Brazil have enjoyed a long, stable relationship and the citizens of both countries seem to have traditionally had a high level of interest, if not admiration, for each other. But the relationship has also been riddled by conflict, and recent spying allegations have laid bare some unsettling activities that have helped push the suspicions to a new high and State relations to a new low.

Brazilians have been notoriously fond recently of saying the World Cup is ‘fixed,’ though without any evidence. Some say an easy penalty awarded to Brazil in the opening fueled these suspicions.

If the U.S. were to, say, miraculously win the championship, the victory may not be attributed to skill or even divine intervention but the NSA or the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the well-known international agency of what is sometimes considered the US “Empire” in Latin America.

Snowden in limbo

Unsurprisingly, considering his previous residency in Hawaii, former NSA contractor/ spy is fearful of another Moscow winter and has made clear his desire to obtain asylum in Brazil. The move would put him closer to Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, and who knows what type of eye-opening revelations could result from the two being neighbors or even roommates (if that is not fodder for a sitcom, I don’t know what is).

Snowden says he is seeking refugee status in Brazil, but so far only a handful of Brazilian politicians have spoken in favor of granting the request. Is it too ridiculous to think a strong US appearance in the World Cup could affect this, for better or worse?

Trade secrets

Last week, Didier Deschamps, the coach of France’s national team, told reporters that a drone had flew over his team’s practice. Soccer espionage? If it was a drone it probably had to be the U.S., or Amazon, or the BBC gathering footage for its World Cup film.

The U.S. is still handling the fallout from accusations of NSA spying on Brazil’s state-controlled energy giant Petrobras and Rousseff.

The revelations, based on documents disclosed by Snowden, rattled U.S.-Brazil relations, prompting Rousseff to cancel her official October 2013 visit to Washington, D.C. Joe Biden made the to Brazil last week to watch the U.S-Ghana match and took the opportunity to pay a visit to Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff. Is was a small step to repair strained relations, one that could be quickly forgotten with a U.S. Cup victory (unless president Obama makes the trips for the final).

Perhaps significantly, Brazil’s Presidential office made no official announcement about the results of the Rousseff-Biden visit.

If the US wants any more attention during this World Cup, however, they’ll have to beat Portugal today.

Vincent Bevins
Natal

We’ve had a week of the World Cup now, and here’s my first impressions. This is not a promise to do this every week.

Lots of dudes

I was in Berlin for the 2006 World Cup, and I spent a few years thinking about the arrival of the 2014 World Cup, so I really should have expected this. I admit to my stupidity. I admit I was surprised to see that the vast, vast majority of World Cup fans who have arrived are groups of men.

This creates a ‘special’ kind of atmosphere in the host cities outside the stadia. I felt sorry for my two pretty Brazilian friends in Fortaleza. As we walked through the town on Tuesday night, they received about 50 marriage proposals from groups of men from around the world.

Dudes, try saying “Hello, how are you” first. Unfortunately, an old stereotype is still present in the minds of some international gringos, and many seem to have come here with the wrong idea. From what I saw, they were rebuked quite firmly.

Few problems, much fun

Are there some small problems with the tournament? Yes, there are. The main complaints are about transportation. This is not surprising, as this is what most Brazilians complain about. But over all, things are going quite well. Compared to the doomsday scenarios that were commonly imagined before the start, things are going great.

Aside from small hiccups (bad transport, some small crime, police brutality), it’s been a great time for most. It’s the World Cup. It’s Brazil. How were they really gonna screw that up?

So far, I’ve been in São Paulo, Fortaleza, and Natal.

Shouting down the president

In the opening match, President Dilma Rousseff was booed. This has set off a firestorm of conversations about class, race, and politics in Brazil.

Well, actually they didn’t boo. They chanted “Hey, Dilma, take it up the ass!” throughout the game, which is a bit more direct. Afterwards, a famous and respected football journalist Juca Kfouri said that this was disrespectful, and it was the “white elite” who did such a thing, and that they did not represent the Brazilian people.

Without getting into the back-and-forth of the debate here, played out on blogs and social media (it’s gotten boring), I want to mention a few things.

It is true that Dilma is less popular than she was at the beginning of her term. It is also true that the fans at the opening Brazil match were much whiter and richer than average Brazilians. It is also true that Dilma’s supporters are concentrated more strongly in the lower-middle and lower classes than in the upper middle class, and more strongly in almost any other part of Brazil than São Paulo. It is also true that the São Paulo upper middle class still matter, very much (for better or worse), even if they are a different and whiter breed. It also true that it is a sad state of affairs (I’d say inexcusable) that dark-skinned Brazilians are much less likely than white Brazilians to be well-off economically. All of those things are true, even if some look contradictory.

No point in trying to read the tea leaves of a football chant in São Paulo to describe Brazil’s political situation. We’ll have an election to figure that out in October.

So, here are two songs (from Brazil) that might serve better as the (un)official soundtrack to the tournament.

Football country” is a collaboration between São Paulo rapper Emicida and ostentation funk performer MC Guimé. As with a lot of the country’s socially conscious urban songs, it helps to know the language. But there are English-language subtitles over the video’s extended intro, which make the themes pretty clear.

The next contender, “Everyone’s Cup,” is a Coca-Cola production, so it’s unsurprisingly more polished. But it features Amazonian star Gaby Amarantos and moves through uplifting scenes of real Brazil without stereotyping. For a more agressive, Brazilian, and visually impressive take on the same song, check out this effort below, “Everyone click play.”

]]> 10 http://frombrazil.blogfolha.uol.com.br/2014/04/25/brazil-and-us-visas-a-reciprocal-headache/ http://frombrazil.blogfolha.uol.com.br/2014/04/25/brazil-and-us-visas-a-reciprocal-headache/#comments Fri, 25 Apr 2014 22:28:58 +0000 http://f.i.uol.com.br/folha/colunas/images/12034327.jpeg http://frombrazil.blogfolha.uol.com.br/?p=4020

As many annoyed travelers are currently finding out, visas are required even for tourist travel between the two countries. It’s the consequence of ‘reciprocity,’ which increasingly feels like officials in Washington and Brasília needlessly banging their heads against one other. But in the wake of the Snowden revelations, things are not likely to improve.

Anna Jean Kaiser
San Francisco

I’ve spent the last few days watching chaos ensue at the San Francisco Brazil consulate as thousands of Americans try to get their Brazilian tourist visas. For fear of driving away their biggest customers, FIFA has put big-time pressure on Brazilian consulates to grant visas to World Cup fans, so ticket holders are given a free visa and priority over other services. If you’re a tourist without World Cup tickets, the likelihood of getting to Brazil is low.

Brazilian consulates in the US are swamped and lines wrap around the block. In soccer-loving San Francisco, Wednesdays are World Cup drop in days – where some 200 people show up with tickets in hand, take a number, and wait.

Americans will be the largest represented foreign fan base at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil – with 154,412 tickets sold to Americans as of early April. But more than a few have run into an often unexpected road bump: unlike citizens from most European countries, all Americans need to obtain tourist visas prior to visiting Brazil.

As a US citizen living in Rio, I’ve had my fair share of headaches dealing with the visa system. But as we’re often reminded, Americans are only put through this because it’s what the US puts Brazilians through. Brazil’s immigration policy is based on the principle of ‘reciprocity’  – that is, Brazil forces citizens of foreign countries to go through what their country makes Brazilians put up with.

In practice it’s actually tougher on Brazilians, whose experiences with the US consulates can be time-consuming, costly, and sometimes insulting. They often have to travel long distances to get to interviews, they have to pay a much higher fee (proportional to national GDP per capita) and they are actually asked questions – tough questions – at their interviews. They are sometimes denied the right to visit the US. For US citizens, the “interview” rarely consists of more than –

“You’re going to Brazil for tourism?”

“Yes.”

“OK. Have fun.”

Reciprocity as a guiding principle seems to be as sensible of an immigration policy as one could come up with. But given the fact that the friendly countries generally seek to attract tourists and trade from one another, why does it feel like they continue to push each other away?

A lot of it has to do with the failure of relations between the two largest countries in the Western Hemisphere to improve under Obama and Rousseff. In the wake of Rousseff’s disgusted reaction to the Snowden revelations, there’s little hope that will change soon.

Obama and Biden have said repeatedly that the US wants Brazilians to visit – Brazilians spent US$10.5 billion in the US in 2013, according to the US Department of Commerce, a 31% increase from 2012.

A recent opinion piece in the New York Times by Roger Cohen described contemporary US/Brazilian relations as an “odd hostility in the Americas.” While far from being enemies, Brazil and the US don’t have a particularly prosperous partnership. On top of strict immigration, there’s no doubt that in recent years, Lula and Dilma have made problematic moves in the eyes of the White House, and vice versa. Brazil’s relationships with Cuba and Venezuela have made Washington uneasy and Lula’s signature on a nuclear deal with Iran and Turkey led US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to say that Turkey and Brazil were “making the world a more dangerous place.”

The NSA revelations showed the world that among the US’ spying targets were President Dilma Rousseff and Brazil’s oil company, Petrobras. Soon after, US Secretary of State John Kerry came under fire for these actions during a state visit in Brasília, and Dilma became the first Head of State to cancel a White House dinner. She made her anger known and demanded an apology, which she did not receive.

This strained relationship goes back many decades. The US abused the region for much of the 20th century.

After years of US -backed military dictatorships and the perceived failure of imposed ‘neoliberal’ policies associated with the “Washington Consensus”, standing up to the US has been an easy way for Latin American politicians to score points domestically. When we saw the rise of the center-left at the turn of the century – Lula, Kirchner, Chavéz, Morales – they all ran on a ‘take no orders from the US’ platform.

And so it remains. Brazil and the US, two huge democracies with similar cultures and citizens who mostly love each other, continue at loggerheads. It’s a shame. And for travelers, a headache.

Photo – chaos outside the US consulate in São Paulo in 2012. Editing and additional writing added by Vincent Bevins in São Paulo.

Increasingly, Brazilians are blasé about two things most everyone used to be excited about – the FIFA World Cup and a wave of protests. We’ll see which way the pendulum swings again come June. Above, last year’s protests become the theme of a small ‘bloco’ at this year’s Carnaval.

By Mauricio Savarese

Attitudes went from “This is going to massive,” “Everyone will be fired up” and “It will change Brazil forever” to “Not again…,” “I can’t wait for this to be over” and “There is just too much hype.”

Radicals aside, there are now few Brazilians overly enthusiastic about either of the two mutually antagonistic events taking place in the country this year: the FIFA World Cup and the protests that have rocked the streets since June. Interest faded very slowly; people got sick of infrastructure issues around the World Cup and violence from agitators and police during protests.

Now these notions are measurable. When the massive protest movement kicked off, pollster Datafolha said 81% of Brazilians supported them, against everything-that-is-wrong-here. That support has now dropped to 52%. Even worse for activists: the criticism of their agenda is rising. Now 42% of Brazilians are against any protests at all. Only 15% held this view last summer, during the Confederations Cup.

Another poll could be seen as a sign that the government’s nationalistic campaign for the World Cup had some effects. Pollster MDA says 85% of Brazilians believe there will be protests during football’s creme de la creme, but only 15% considered actually being in them. That could lead one to believe there is widespread support for hosting the tournament. But that isn’t the case, either.

Almost 51% of Brazilians say they wouldn’t support a bid to host the tournament if it were to be made today, MDA says. Datafolha says 52% of locals don’t approve of FIFA’s main event being hosted here. In November 2008, impressive 79% of the people were for it all.

We can guess at motives. Four World Cup stadia (São Paulo, Curitiba, Cuiabá, and Porto Alegre) are still at risk and many reject the high amount of money spent, which they’d like to see go somewhere else,

There is usually bitterness before big sporting events. Brazilians are showing that attitude now, but that doesn’t it support couldn’t skyrocket the moment the Cup starts and Brazil takes on Croatia in Corinthians Arena.

For protesters, the question is whether they can get support from those who are critical of the World Cup organization, but not as excited to parrot their ubiquitous “there will be no Cup” slogan.

For football fans, the best bet seems to be on using well the period between June 12 and July 13, despite the fact that Brazil neither prepared appropriately nor invested as wisely as necessary. They can argue that a proper debate on how things went would be more appropriate in the general elections, in October. They will have 64 matches watched by billions supporting their cause.

But Brazil is a surprising country, and protesters could break that advantage if they get back in touch with the aspirations of the majority. That is not the case now. If they insist with the politics of no that have made people less interested, it may even be difficult even to get Brazilians to the polling stations later this year and deliver some attention to their grievances.

As of now, the only thing massive thing most Brazilians can relate to is sheer boredom.

In the wake of the tragedy at the stadium to host the opening match in 2014 (pictured above), Mauricio Savarese speculates on the political logic behind the selection of the 12 host cities.

By Mauricio Savarese

“Who are the most powerful governors and mayors in Brazil?”

Back in 2008, that was a strange question to ask someone involved in choosing the 2014 World Cup host cities. But I did. So off the record, one of those guys pored over the map for the presidential elections, friends that former President Lula had to please and opposition members that couldn’t be ignored. He said nothing about projects, common sense or legacy.

I thought he was just a tactless political analyst. But in the end he got it all right when the venues were announced in 2009.

To understand delays, missed deadlines and excessive spending it is important to know how the 12 host cities were chosen. After all, Brazil could have had a tournament with only eight stadia. It could also have made the arenas smaller in cities where local professional football is just a fantasy – as is the case in Brasilia, Manaus and Cuiaba. And if the issue really was bringing more tourists into great cities practically unknown abroad, then Belem, Florianopolis and Goiania would be in.

The most controversial case is that of Cuiabá, Mato Grosso. It sits in a place with little infrastructure, tradition in the sport or touristic appeal. It seems the most bizarre choice of them all. Its stadium almost certainly won’t be finished by the end of the year. But it was one of the first to be counted in. The main reason: former governor and soybeans magnate Blairo Maggi was a key ally for the ruling Worker’s Party (PT) to keep. He is a great fundraiser and a calming presence in his party.

The Amazon was the excuse for selecting Manaus. But it wasn’t that easy: Belem was a bitter rival and it is the capital of a state governed then by another PT politician, Ana Julia Carepa. But former governor Eduardo Braga (Amazonas state) was a rising star in the government coalition. Everyone knew that he is a potential leader of the Senate and that he controlls votes in the North. Carepa was going the opposite way – bound for defeat in 2010. Manaus won, Carepa lost.

Fortaleza, one of the most violent cities in Brazil, is getting an astonishing six World Cup matches mainly because governor Cid Gomes is a close ally to both Lula and President Dilma Rousseff. He is such a key figure in the highly populated Northeast region that he is now eagerly attacking former party colleague and presidential hopeful Eduardo Campos so he can help Rousseff keep her job at the 2014 elections – to be held shortly after the World Cup.

Curitiba’s bid was supported by two strong elements: the support of former governor Roberto Requiao, who is now a maverick at the Senate, and the difficulties PT has in Santa Catarina, the state where beautiful and football crazy Florianopolis is located. Natal’s case was a little different: governor Rosalba Ciarlini was an important interlocutor within the opposition and runs a state that has given ministers, a speaker of the House and key congressmen to Rousseff’s administration.

Brasilia’s Mane Garrincha stadium was more of a case of political megalomania. Before he became the first Brazilian governor to be jailed during his term, the opposition’s Jose Roberto Arruda decided he would try to win the right to hold the opener from Sao Paulo. To do that, he would have to build a venue for about 70,000 people in a city where you don’t get that many people even if you add together all the attendants at all of the local league’s fixtures. Later, the PT’s Agnelo Queiroz insisted.

The troubled Arena Corinthians was also a political pick, although that had more to do with Lula’s passion for his club than party politics. At first, the opener would be at São Paulo FC’s Morumbi stadium. A completely new one only made it into the plans after a Corinthians chairman scrapped a deal on broadcasting rights and signed a deal that pleased the former head of the Brazilian FA, disgraced Ricardo Teixeira.

Sao Paulo’s new arena was also suitable to deflate Belo Horizonte’s bid for the opener – a late, but credible competitor because of former governor Aecio Neves’ support. Neves is set to be the main contender against Rousseff in 2014, although polls now say the incumbent is likely to remain in power.

Rio, Salvador, Recife and Porto Alegre were all natural candidates to host World Cup matches, regardless of their possible political benefits.

It could have been worse. One of the closest allies to Presidents Lula and Rousseff is the Viana clan, running the distant state of Acre on the behalf of PT since time immemorial. Their capital, Rio Branco, is a tiny city of about 300,000 inhabitants in the middle of the jungle. That analyst I talked to a few years ago said then the place actually had a chance. Most Brazilians laughed pretty hard at that possibility. But the run up to 2014 shows a little love can always make stadiums happen.

Mauricio Savarese is a Brazilian journalist, originally from Ipiranga, in São Paulo’s zona sul, and is the author of the blog, “A Brazilian operating in this area.” He was formerly a reporter in Brasília for UOL and is active on Twitter.

Dom Phillips and Otavio Cury were at the protests here in São Paulo last night (June 17), taking in the scenes and exploring the diverse reasons people took to the streets.  In Portuguese, with subtitles in English.

Though both the stadium and Brazil’s national side are still ‘under construction,’ Sunday’s match was a largely successful and inspiring example of what the World Cup here can be. Above, a dedicated England fan…who is Brazilian.

By Dom Phillips

Be careful around the Maracanã, because that part of town can be a bit sketchy, one carioca, or Rio native, told me before the world famous stadium’s reopening game between Brazil and England on Sunday.

But instead of street kids hustling for change, I was met leaving the São Cristóvão station by smiling, green-clad helpers holding giant cardboard hands that pointed the way up a flyover, which had been closed to traffic and was now full of pedestrians snaking their way peacefully to the newly rebuilt Maracanã stadium.

It was clear on the metro journey out that this was going to run smoothly. In my carriage, a young, and very pale, English couple in England team shirts sat quietly, surrounded by Brazilians in green and yellow, including a baby on its mother’s lap. At bars around the ground before the game, more England fans drank beer on the pavements in their red or white tops – some 900 apparently made the trip over, I was later told. They were an incongruous sight on Rio streets, particularly here in the centre, a long way from the Southern tourist beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. A sign of how much of a shock Rio is in for when the gringos – as all foreigners are called – actually show up in force, and of how interesting that might be for everybody concerned.

One São Paulo-based English ex-pat, wearing a smart red England shirt, told me before the game that he actually wanted Brazil to win, because it would be better overall for the World Cup and that’s what we all wanted. A British journalist even turned up to the game in a Brazil vest. The England supporters were drowned out with boos by Brazilian fans every time they attempted to start up a chant. But the mood amongst the 66,000 that watched the 2-2 draw in which both England’s Wayne Rooney and Brazil’s Paulinho both scored memorable goals was overwhelmingly affable, and while this was not a classic, it was still a hugely entertaining game.

Rooney’s goal was a long, curling strike from outside the box that had TV Globo commentators discussing its “surgical precision” – exactly the sort of golaço, as a beautiful goal is called in Portuguese, the opening game needed. Paulinho’s whiplash rebound volley to equalise exploded into the net. Fred hit his home hard. Neymar threw in some dazzles in a first half where Brazil played better.

Off the pitch, nothing went badly wrong. Sighs of relief all around official circles, you might imagine. Rio really needed this to go well, after a run of crimes and disasters made all the wrong international headlines for a city with two enormous international sports events to stage.

An American exchange student was brutally gang raped and her French boyfriend badly beaten on a collective transport van, and the vans have now been banned in South Rio’s tourist areas. After an argument between a disgruntled student and its driver, a bus careered off a flyover in central Rio, killing seven. Shootings have broken out in so-called pacified favelas like the Complexo do Alemão. A German tourist was shot and badly injured during a hold-up in Rocinha, a favela pacified in 2011.

The Brazilian authorities had locked down the entire area around the Maracanã, sealing off a sort of protection zone around the stadium which was closed to traffic. A helicopter buzzed overhead, there were armed police and soldiers on the streets, as well as the army of green-clad helpers, some of whom used megaphones to move the crowds.

In the days before the match, a roof panel fell off a stadium in Salvador and a Rio judge suspended Sunday’s match on safety grounds, later lifting the injunction. In March Rio’s other big stadium, the Engenhão, was closed for safety reasons. Photos of the Maracanã looking like a building site have been bouncing around Brazilian news sites.

But on the day, even though it is covered in plaster dust and not quite finished, the stadium looked impressive – particularly on the giant screens, as the camera swept around the concrete circles of this enormous gladiatorial bowl. Even the view from the rear of the stadium was stunning, as the sun set on the mountains that circle it and glinted on a hilltop favela.

It was a reminder that the World Cup is, for the vast billions of people who watch it, a television event. And if there is one thing that Rio – this vainest of cities, home to Brazil’s biggest television network and much of its cinema – knows, it is how to look good on television.

Sunday’s football was not classic, nor did it leave Brazil fans, or even coach Luiz Scolari happy. But with four goals in the second half, plenty of pace, and a handful of great moments, it was enough to whet your appetite for more big, set-piece games in a setting like this. Exactly what the World Cup promises.

Brazil needs its national side to raise the bar: Brazilian media have joked that both the Maracanã and the team are “under construction”. But the side did play with more bite. And the morning after the game, Brazil star Neymar was already at his new club Barcelona – many hope his long-awaited move to Europe will raise his game just as it has lifted that of his Brazil team-mate Lucas, now at PSG.

While for one Brazilian soccer fan, Sunday’s game was a dream come true. Miguel Salek Junior, 31, who writes for a Brazilian football website and has never been to the UK, has been a fanatic England fan since he watched Bobby Robson’s England side in the 1990 World Cup. Having waxed lyrical about Paul Gascoigne, Gary Lineker and David Platt, he showed From Brazil his red England shirt, with the name Lineker on the back, and his flag.

“The passion of the English fan for his national team is outstanding,” he said. “I expect a great game from England.” Miguel will not have been disappointed by Wayne Rooney’s “surgical strike”. While for even the most patriotic of England fans, the idea of someone from the country of Pelé and Zico glorifying as unglamorous a player as David Platt is, frankly, hilarious. But Miguel is a strangely heartening example of the kind of unlikely surprise football can throw up. Because this is a game that draws out the similarities between people from different nations, while simultaneously celebrating their differences.

Photos Dom Phillips

This year, the country didn’t deliver on everything international observers thought the country had promised, but Brazil still remains one of the 21st century’s most remarkable success stories. 2013 could be decisive.

For those paying attention to Brazil headlines, 2012 was mostly a bad year. For some, it was enough to re-evaluate the status as an emerging power that the country has euphorically held for years now.

The economy barely grew, and government involvement in the economy has surprised some international investors. The ruling Worker’s Party was dragged through the mud repeatedly as the Supreme Court handed down sentence after sentence for a vote-buying scandal from Lula’s first term. The PCC returned to the scene in São Paulo, and a small-scale war broke out between police and the gang. New laws dismayed environmentalists concerned for the Amazon.

But Brazil still remains one of the most remarkable success stories of the 21st century. This is true for a few simple reasons. 40 million people have risen out of poverty, and inequality has decreased. Despite the slowdown, unemployment is at record lows, and wages have continued to rise. Perhaps most importantly, we saw last week that President Dilma has an eye-popping 78 percent approval rating.

In short, the vast majority of the population support the way the country is being run, people are better off than ever, and society is more just. It’s important to remember that this is the whole point of economic growth and democracy in the first place. The results are there. We shouldn’t confuse means with ends, as is so easy to do when we journalists get caught up in the latest GDP numbers, or scandal.

Even some of the the year’s worst stories have a positive flip-side. As ugly as the corruption trial was, many believe that the tough sentences handed down to high-level politicians could signal an end to political impunity in the country. And despite the tragedy of a spike in violence in São Paulo’s periphery, the state’s murder rate is still much lower than it was a few years ago.

When Brazilians and observers (justifiably) complain about the country at the moment, a little context can be uplifting. What has the world been going through for the last 12 years, especially since 2007? How many countries in the world can you point to with: rising standards of living, reduced inequality, and widespread, long-lasting contentment with leadership? This is certainly not how things feel in my native California, or in Europe. And all of this in an open, liberal democracy? I can’t think of many examples.

But of course, nothing guarantees this will continue, and 2013 could be a decisive year. We can’t expect wages to rise forever without economic growth returning, and so the world will be holding their breath until it does, as expected next year.  But if instead there is more stagnation, or more of what the international community sees as state meddling in the economy, international investors could finally give up and concentrate on countries like Mexico or Colombia. And it’s hard to imagine how the PT would be seen by the people if any of the party’s social gains were reversed.

I personally don’t think either of those doom scenarios will come to pass. We’ll see. But for now, here are some of the bad, the good, and the interesting stories from 2012.

These are summaries – click the links for more in-depth info.

The bad

Corruption –

We watched all year as high-level politician after high-level politician was brought down for the ‘mensalão’ scandal from 2003, and a new hero of the opposition (and anti-corruption movements) was born in the form of Joaquim Barbosa (pictured above).

Violence –

War broke out for the first since 2006 in São Paulo. Again, the major parties were the PCC, the state’s main gang, and the military police. The latter lost over 100 officers to (mostly) targeted executions, while the murder rate in SP jumped.

The economy –

This is the big one. After growing 7.5% in 2010 (and causing us in the international press to rush here), then slowing to 2.7% in 2011, we may not do much better than 1% in 2012. Even more awkward was the moment when Finance Minister Guido Mantega joined the rest of analysts in wildly overestimating third-quarter growth, leading The Economist to call for his dismissal. Needless to say, President Dilma was not pleased to hear this from the British magazine.

But the economy is expected to pick up in 2013, thanks not only in part to the huge cut in interest rates carried out this year, which have finally come down to the levels of a normal country. And in reality, the 7.5% growth year was a statistical blip after -0.3% in crisis-hit 2009. Taken together, the economy had been growing at 3.6% a year, close to the average over the last 20 years, and to what we’re likely to see over the next few years.

But more worrying is that some investors believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that the government has begun to micro-manage the economy and that the possibility of intervention may be unpredictable. Much of this has to do with the decision to lower energy prices. I personally think they’re wrong, or at least that this was a problem of the government’s way of communicating the changes rather than the changes themselves. But some people are on edge, and this is especially important, as a drop in investment is the real culprit for the bad numbers.

And of course, there remains so much that Brazil should and could do to increase productivity and upgrade its growth model.

Infrastructure –

We are still waiting on this one. This is one part of Brazil’s economy that most desperately needs to be resolved, and we’ve still only seen baby steps.

The environment –

My visit to the Amazon this year was not pretty, both because of the persistence of slave labor and the obvious destruction of the rain forest. Things took a turn for the depressing for environmental activists as the government rolled back protections in 2012.

The good

Politics –

Whatever you think of the ruling Worker’s Party (PT), it is undeniable that if you use the standard most often applied to political parties, Lula and Dilma’s have overseen a truly remarkable success story since 2003. Lula left office one of the most popular leaders in the world, and two years into her term, Dilma is already widely supported. 78 per cent approval is a breathtaking figure. And this after everything that happened in 2012.

Despite the mensalão mess, the PT did very well in municipal elections this year, and took back São Paulo, South America’s largest city. If 2014 elections were held today, all polls indicate Dilma would win by a landslide.

And without a doubt, the country plays a much larger role on the world stage than it did in 2002.

The PT, like everyone else, could improve greatly, but widespread support and a rising nation means you are winning, big. This is a tough act to follow.

The real economy –

As I mentioned above, for all the dismal numbers, life on the ground still feels better than ever. Families are still rising out of poverty. The explanation for this is a little complicated, but the reality is there. It can’t last forever like this, of course, but forever hasn’t happened yet.

Justice –

The flip side to the mensalão mess is a justice system which really has teeth for the first time anyone can remember. This has always been the case for the poor, but now politicians can be on the hook, too. This has many hoping they will think twice in the future.

Even some police are being held to account. Some of those that gunned down suspected members of the PCC and, by all accounts, set off this year’s wave of violence, are now in jail.

World Cup preparations –

For years we wondered if Brazil would be ready to host the World Cup. We haven’t sorted out our infrastructure problems, but it looks like at least the stadiums will be ready.

My personal take is the following: The World Cup will go the way Brazil does for most visitors. Something or another will go wrong. They’ll be stuck in traffic, or miss a flight, or end up spending more than they expected on this or that. But those things will be heavily outweighed by the charm of the country and the fun of the event, and most will go home raving about Brazil.

Cost of living –

For us foreigners, it’s been good news that the real has come down significantly this year. Brazil is no longer so maddeningly expensive. For Brazilians, the cost of living hasn’t changed much.

Corinthians –

“The people’s team” from São Paulo took the world club championship, and gave Brazilian football a much-needed boost. This also meant lots of traffic and nonstop fireworks in the city, but overall it was very good for the country, and for South America.

The unexpected and interesting

Lula back on the scene –

I suppose it was more of an anomaly that he was actually gone for a while. But after recovering quickly from cancer, the former president was given a grand welcome back and got to work quickly, helping out in this year’s municipal elections. Crucially, he has so far floated above the mess of the mensalão scandal, and insisting he know nothing of the scheme. We’ll see if he can keep this up in 2013.

Music –

2012 was a much more interesting year musically than 2011, in my opinion. We saw the rise of Brazilian hip hop to the mainstream, “techno brega” from the Amazon in the form of Gaby Amarantos, and funky pop from the likes of Tulipa Ruiz. Here’s our full interview with Emicida, and Criolo’s will be posted next year.

Eike Batista –

He did not have a good year. There was the unfortunate incident with his son, Thor. Then he attracted lots of negative attention, and fell quite dramatically from his position as Brazil’s richest man.

Race –

Hard to categorize this one as good or bad, but the country stared two deep-seated problems in the face this year: relations with indigenous populations, and the government’s approach to black Brazilians.

Tourism –

The sector is doing quite well, but it has nothing to do with the gringos. The sector is almost entirely powered by Brazilians moving around their own country.

The rebirth of the center –

Long more famous for being “Crack land” than anything else, we saw interesting new movements coming up from the street.

Evangelical power –

Much to the dismay of bien-pensant liberals, Brazil’s numerous, and often unsettling, Evangelical Christian churches revealed themselves as an ever more potent political force.

Exhibitionist turn –

We saw Brazil’s sub-celebrity realitytainment industry power into the same bizarre gears we’ve been accustomed to around the world. First, there was the sex, or perhaps rape, transmitted live on Big Brother Brasil. Then we had the young girl who auctioned off her virginity for $800,000.

Petrobras – Graça Foster –

One of South America’s largest companies inherited a true rags-to-riches story as Graça Foster took over. Here’s hoping she can help navigate Petrobras out of its current mess.

Niemeyer –

And finally, we bid a sad farewell to nation-defining visionary architect Oscar Niemeyer, who passed at 104 years old. Here’s an interview I did with him last year, and perhaps next year I’ll post my pictures from his 104^th birthday party.

Here’s hoping 2013 goes better. Happy New Year.

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The ‘people’s team‘ from São Paulo upset Chelsea this morning in Japan and delivered Brazilian football a particularly delicious triumph.

By Dom Phillips

It has been six years since a South American team won the FIFA Club World Cup. But today Corinthians deserved every centimetre of their 1-0 victory, having outplayed Chelsea with a performance that showed the São Paulo team at its very best.

Owned by a Russian billionaire, managed by a Spaniard, with a team stocked by expensive, international players like Spain’s Fernando Torres and Brazil’s Ramires, Chelsea were far and away the favourites.

But Corinthians played with the technique, the skill, the defensive capacity, and most of all the garra – or sheer force of will – that characterises their game at its best. And with a headed goal by Peruvian forward Paulo Guerrero that gave them the trophy, the team have caused a major upset in world football.

At kick-off, it did not look so balanced: Corinthians had struggled to beat Egyptians Al-Ahly 1-0 in the semi final, whereas Chelsea had effortlessly disposed of Mexico’s Monterrey 3-1. Even Corinthians coach Tite had refused to promise victory, saying instead the team would leave fans proud.

This was precisely what they did, taking the game to Chelsea from the beginning, while growing in confidence and stature as the match developed and it became obvious that, yes, the team from London could be beaten. Chelsea threatened time and again. But when the Corinthians defence did falter, goalkeeper Cássio held firm – a goal-line save with his legs was just one of his heart-in-the-mouth, match-saving moments. He deserved his man-of-the-match prize.

This was a tense, but fluid game. But Corinthians kept coming back and kept coming forward. Tite’s advance defence system – in which every player, no matter how far forward he is, has the job to close down the opposition and get the ball back – saw Corinthians winning possession time and time again.

It took them 69 minutes to score as the ball rebounded from the Chelsea goalmouth, out to midfield and back again. In a deft and determined play, Danilo moved laterally across the area to shoot – and Guerrero seized upon the rebound to head the ball home. Even then, Corinthians did not sit back: they defended hard, fought for the ball in midfield, constructed attack after attack, while Chelsea, technically superior, always looked dangerous on the break.

And when the whistle blew, Chelsea looked stunned in defeat. They had not expected to lose. With the game over, the cameras panned over the sour, disbelieving faces of Chelsea’s Frank Lampard and Fernado Torres. “Chelsea fume after world final defeat,” read the Guardian headline.

The victory tops a remarkable year for Corinthians. In December 2011, on the same day that they were mourning the loss of their former captain Sócrates, Corinthians sealed the Brazilian championship. Six months later, after decades of disappointment, the team beat Boca Juniors to win the Libertadores – South America’s Champions League. And now, a hard-fought and, outside of Brazil at least, unexpected victory over European champions Chelsea.

It was all very different a year ago, when the high hopes that Santos would beat Barcelona were crushed 4-0. And it is a victory Brazilian football should be grateful for. Two years away from hosting the World Cup, the Brazilian national team still struggles to find its rhythm and has just been given a new manager: ‘Big Phil’ Scolari. In Brazil, attendances are low and the game even in the country’s top division cannot compare to the pace and finesse of Champions League teams. Corinthians are not celebrated for playing the fluid, creative ‘beautiful game’ Brazil is famous for. But today they gave Brazilian football a much needed shot in the arm.

Because for a team from São Paulo that is largely made up of workmanlike Brazilian league players to go to Japan and beat one of the richest, most famous, and most successful teams in Europe with its multi-million dollar line-up of global talent, is a particularly delicious Brazilian victory.

By Dom Phillips

The game is being scripted as an epic battle: glamorous, strutting Chelsea, Champions League winners, up against the gritty, passionate Corinthians and their army of fans. São Paulo’s so-called ‘team of the people’ finally beat their decades-old jinx and won the South American Libertadores in July. They were also 2011’s Brazilian Champions. A win on Sunday would crown a perfect year for them.

Both teams conquered their trophies with efficient, defensive games. Corinthians then floundered in the Brazilian national league, before rallying back with some recent wins. Chelsea are already out of this year’s Champions League and struggling under unpopular new manager Rafael Benitez. But they are still clearly the favourites

In past years, the trophy has been much more valued by South American teams. But recently the Europeans have won it. Even so, expectations were high before last year’s Club World Cup Final that Santos, where two of Brazil’s brightest talents Neymar and Ganso were playing, could beat the Barcelona team being called one of the greatest of all time. Could Neymar, the one young Brazilian genius not to have left Brazil to dazzle alongside Lionel Messi? Dream on. Santos didn’t even get a look in, losing dismally, 4-0.

I was in São Paulo in December 2005, when São Paulo FC beat Liverpool 1-0 to win the FIFA Club World Cup. The noise of cheering, firecrackers, and car horns blaring reverberated around the city, much to my disappointment. Liverpool is not my team, but it’s pretty much my home city and Brazilian friends took no prisoners in rubbing in the defeat.

Rafael Benitez was Liverpool manager then. But he won the title with Italy’s Inter in 2010. And he’s now in charge of Chelsea – with three of Brazil’s national team in his squad. And he knows exactly what this trophy means to a South American team.

“Maybe in Europe people don’t consider the Club World Cup important. But talk to Brazilians or Mexicans and you will see how they see it. For them, it’s a chance to show the level they’re at against a great European team,” Benitez said recently.

Benitez also has three Brazilian national team players in his squad: midfielders Oscar and Ramires and defender David Luiz. Ramires scored a key goal for Chelsea to take out Barcelona in April on their way to this year’s Champions League victory. Both Oscar, in a deft one-two, and David Luiz, masterly in a rare midfield role, contributed to Chelsea’s 3-1 defeat of Mexico’s Monterrey in Thursday semi-final. Which will have rattled the thousands of Corinthians fans flooding Yokohama’s streets, many of whom watched as Chelsea effortlessly dispensed with the Mexicans.

But this Corinthians team is an efficient soccer machine that coach Tite has crafted over the past year or so, adjusting his system to different players. When the team is playing well as a unit, it is adept at getting the ball back as soon as it loses it, at getting the goals it needs, at hanging on to a lead.

Nevertheless, they struggled to beat Egypt’s Al-Ahly, the African champions, 1-0 in Tuesday’s semi-final with just one goal from their new Peruvian centre-forward Paulo Guerrero – and this despite the army of fans they had dominating the stadium. It is midwinter in Japan and many of the team had never seen snow. Brazilian sports sites are covered in pictures of Corinthians players smothered in giant parkas, scarves and beanie hats, eyes glittering with cold.

But the team has a tradition of putting itself and its supporters through all kinds of cliff-hangers before occasionally pulling out the magic at the last minute. And this stadium has been lucky for another Brazilian team before: Brazil won the 2002 World Cup here, defeating Germany with two goals from the great Ronaldo. Whose last team before retiring, in the twilight of his career, was Corinthians.

SAO PAULO, Brazil — If you plan to fly somewhere in Brazil on a busy weekend, you’d better be prepared to wait. At some airports, up to a third of the flights can be canceled or delayed.

If you choose to drive, you’ll sit in traffic. The 50-mile trip from Sao Paulo to nearby beaches for the Carnaval holiday this year took as long as five hours.

If you’re counting on the planned bullet train between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, good luck with that. It won’t be ready when Brazil hosts soccer’s 2014 World Cup. In fact, the transportation minister said recently that it won’t be operating until 2022, at the earliest.

And if you’re a farmer, whose commodities are helping fuel Brazil’s export boom, you’d better count on up to a third of your harvest falling out of trucks navigating bumpy old roads on the way to market. Then you might wait for days at overwhelmed ports to unload the rest.

Continue reading “Brazil wins the gold medal in gridlock” at the Los Angeles Times.

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Soccer fans in Brazil drink beer before and after the game, and are so intensely focused on the action during the 90-minute matches that the current law doesn’t discourage many fans from attending. But FIFA, the soccer authority, makes a lot of money off of beer, and is insisting that Brazil essentially agreed to allow sales when they signed up to host the event in the first place.

FIFA doesn’t write our laws, many in Brasília have been saying. If it comes to that, FIFA will be extremely displeased. But what can they really do?

Yesterday this newspaper broke the story that lawmakers were considering dropping the provision that allowed alcohol in stadiums, since they feared it could be voted down. Today, the government was quick to insist that they would include it in the World Cup bill that will be voted on next week.

But that begs the question – if they almost dropped it, fearing its defeat, does simply loudly proclaiming that it will stay in mean that it will pass?

This matters most to Budweiser, a major sponsor of the 2014 event.

In 2007, when Brazil was trying to win the right to host the World Cup, authorities guaranteed there would be no “legal restrictions” on food and alcohol. It was this agreement that led FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke to say earlier this year:

Alcoholic drinks are part of the FIFA World Cup, so we’re going to have them. Excuse me if I sound a bit arrogant but that’s something we won’t negotiate. The fact that we have the right to sell beer has to be a part of the law.

Readers may remember that a little more recently, some Brazilians thought Valcke sounded quite arrogant indeed when he said the country needed “a kick up the backside”, and set off a huge row.

Brazil and FIFA have not been seeing eye to eye on much recently.

FIFA is upset with Brazil about delays in construction of necessary stadiums, the state of infrastructure, roads, airports, security, and safety, as well as a dispute over whether or not students and the elderly should be eligible for half-price tickets to the games. Brazil is upset at FIFA for making such a big deal about everything and trying to mandate how the event will be run, down to the smallest detail, in order to maximize profits.

Fans familiar with sporting events in the US or Europe are often shocked at how little commerce takes place at Brazilian soccer games. At a lot of stadiums, absolutely nothing is on sale but a cheap hot dog and can of soda.

That is because in Brazil, soccer is not just business. It is sacred.

Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo is clearly trying to pressure the Brazilian legislators into approving the pro-alcohol bill by saying today that they basically had to. But it seems a lot of them think they don’t. If they vote it down, then what will FIFA do? Complain more?

Links:
Fifa apologizes, sort of, to Brazil
Brazil World Cup – Please enjoy your staying
Brazil World Cup: trouble brewing

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Ricardo Teixeira, the man responsible for running Brazilian soccer for 22 years, stepped down today, citing health reasons. But Teixeira, who would have organized the 2014 World Cup, has also been facing intense pressure to resign after a new corruption scandal emerged.

Which was the real reason? Quite possibly both were.

But what is certain is that futebol here will be different, as this one man exerted such a strong influence – for both good and bad – on the national sport since taking over as head of the Brazilian Football Federation (CBF) in 1989.

Under his tenure, Brazil won two World Cup titles, in 1994 and 2002, and was granted the rights to host the competition in 2014. But he was also widely accused of corruption and had chilly relations with president Dilma Rousseff.

The most recent scandal was an accusation that he received kickbacks from a company suspected of massively overcharging for a friendly match between Brazil and Portugal in 2008. He took the money in exchange for letting the company rob the Brazilian taxpayer, critics said.

We knew he was sick, and was going to be taking medical leave. But today we found out he was out for good.

“Football in our country is always associated with talent and disorganization,” he said. “When we won, it was thanks to our talent, and when we lost, it came down to a lack of organization,” he wrote in a letter.

Teixeira will be replaced by Jose Maria Marin, a 79-year-old former politician who for our purposes is virtually unknown. He himself may step down in the 2005, a year before the all-important event is to take place.

Recently, FIFA and Brazil have been trading insults as Brazil is clearly behind in certain aspects of preparations for the 2014 World Cup. Teixeira’s many opponents are celebrating today, but it’s far from clear what all of this will actually mean.

Links:

Godfather of Brazilian football in the hot seat
Fifa apologizes, sort of, to Brazil
Brazil World Cup – Please enjoy your staying
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I just got a curious email from a PR, and the obvious intent was to inform me, the journalist, that everything is getting better between FIFA and Brazil. But: 1) the fact that this letter needs sending at all is a problem and 2) it seems like Blatter is saying the same thing General Secretary Jerome Valcke said, but with fancier words.

If you haven’t been paying attention, Valcke told Brazil the country needed “a kick up the backside” to get things going in preparations for the World Cup, setting off a huge diplomatic row and leading Brazil to refuse to deal with Valcke anymore.

This is the letter in full. I have bolded the parts that would make me mad if it was sent to me.

Dear Minister,

First of all, please allow me to express my deepest regret for the present situation. I am gravely concerned about the deterioration in the relationship between FIFA and the Brazilian government, a relationship that has always been characterized by mutual respect, as you rightly point out in your letter of 5 March 2012. In the meantime, you have also received a letter from the FIFA Secretary Jerome Valcke and I have no further comment on this matter other than to say that both as FIFA President and personally, I would like to apologize to all those – above all the Brazilian government and President Dilma Rousseff – who feel that their honor and pride has been injured.

Nevertheless, dear Minister, we should and must work together. We have a common goal – the organization of an extraordinary World Cup in the land of football, in the land of champions. Brazil deserves to host the World Cup and the entire world is looking forward to it. However, the sands of time have been running since 2007. Therefore, let us not waste time on entrenching our positions. Let us instead build something great together, as promised by President Lula during his presidency. I will be travelling in Asia in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal until 10 March, and afterwards I would like to meet President Rousseff and yourself as soon as possible – ideally next week.

I trust in your understanding and willingness to arrange such a meeting. Furthermore, I would like to convey to you my utmost respect and also kindly request you to send President Dilma my very best wishes.

Yours sincerely,

 FIFA
Joseph S. Blatter
President

“Brazil deserves to host the World Cup” ? Well, that is just so very, very nice of you to say, Joseph.

Links:
World Cup Planning at a standstill as FIFA and Brazil trade insults (Andrew Downie Blog)
Brazil World Cup – Please enjoy your staying (terrible English on Cup site, from this blog) 
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The good news is that Brazil has unveiled a site that allows potential visitors to get to know the host cities for the 2014 World Cup. The bad news is that you must learn another language. No, not Portuguese, but some kind of bizarre English-Portuguese hybrid.

There are some real gems here:

São Paulo: “One of the players that master the halfway line. Leading the main moves of the team”

Brasília: “Headquarter to the Government of Brazil, Brasília leaves nothing to desire when compared to the main metropolises of the world. And if you are seeking for a true great game, there is no better place.”

Salvador: “Cheers the fans with brilliant moves full of swing, typical to its people.”

Cuiabá: “Known for the gold extraction in past centuries, it is now rich in diversity of the Amazonian fauna and flora, and that of Pantanal.”

It goes on like this.

It is a bit too easy for foreign journalists to continually beat up on Brazil for supposedly not being prepared to host either the 2014 World Cup or the 2016 Olympics. With so much time before the events, I think this question often dominates international coverage much more than it should, and I have little doubt that despite whatever problems may arise, both will be great experiences for most everyone involved.

But, as Andrew Downie points out:

Brazil’s Tourism Ministry has a reported annual budget of 180 million reais (around $100 million) to spend on enticing visitors to come to Brazil.

Would it really be that difficult to hire a native English speaker to do the translations?

No. Brazil is not a poor country, nor is it lacking in expertise.

Note to the Brazilian Ministry of Tourism: If you’re looking for an official translator, I’m available. I’m not joking.

Thanks to Andrew Downie’s Brazil Blog for spotting this.

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