Another midweek soccer match in England’s green and pleasant…A seasonal downpour has given way to that fine English drizzle and two players slide in for a crunching tackle at the edge of the penalty box. Studs are raised, hairy legs are caked with mud. Spectators groan through the gap between their tribal scarves and raincoat hoods, and blow on their chilled fingers as they send a prayer up to the watery sky.

Fast-forward to an afternoon training session in Brazil. The sun is sinking and Ipanema has its usual cluster of sports fans. Lithe, tanned legs pound the damp sand at the high-tide line as a bikini clad figure works up a sweat as she concentrates on keeping the ball in the air. Beyond her, along the sand, two hundred other soccer devotees are practicing with equal dedication. The air thickens with dust and a score of balls bob up and down along the horizon. It’s easy to imagine that you are in the belly of some gigantic Brazilian ‘pipoca’ (popcorn) machine.     

Brazil is arguably the most football crazed nation on earth and Rio de Janeiro is where the craze hits fever pitch. When it was built for the 1950 World Cup the great Jornalista Mário Filho stadium (better known simply as Maracanã) was the biggest stadium in the world, with capacity for 199,854. (Brazil lost 2-1 in the final game to arch-rivals Uruguay). Modern safety regulations have caught up with Maracanã and, with seating, the stadium will only hold 82,238 for the 2014 World Cup. On an average summer weekend it can be very hard to find a room, any room, in Rio and an estimated 20,000 more beds are needed for the cup. There is even talk of berthing ships out in Guanabara Bay since it is unlikely that hotels can be built in time.

Not everyone is convinced that Brazil is ready for the responsibility of hosting the event. One city centre park has been occupied by a campsite of demonstrators arguing that the city has far more pressing social obligations it should be dealing with. “World Cup is for the rich” they say. Meanwhile there are completely lawless favelas here where under normal circumstances the police are unable to set foot. For more than a year already, the police and army have sporadically been carrying out what is essentially an ‘invasion of occupied territory’ within the city. The World Cup is seen as the prime motivator for the ‘pacification’ (some say ‘purification’) of these communities.

Even so, the opinions of most cariocas range from the ‘blindly optimistic’ to the ‘completely over-excited.’ Taxis here seem to be permanently fitted with non-stop soccer commentary. Travel around the city enough and all the hoarse Portuguese bellowing just becomes white-noise. The only time you notice it is in a particularly exciting match when you have a particularly partisan driver. It can be quite terrifying dodging through the bleating Copacabana traffic with a taxi driver who is throwing both hands up in the air and crooking his head back to you to yell in your face: “Vai Flamengo!”