The greatest show on earth played out on its most inspiring stage was the promise when football's governing body awarded Brazil the World Cup almost seven years ago. Now, after all the delays, protests, misspending and cuts – thankfully, there's been a bit of football too, to remind us what all fuss is supposed to be about – we are about to find out if Fifa's optimism really was misplaced.
No nation is more central to the story of this, international sport’s greatest tournament; none has enjoyed more success and yet even now, with only a matter of days to go before it kicks off, there is the persistent, very real doubt Brazil’s second staging of the tournament may not prove to be the hoped for celebration. It certainly doesn’t inspire much confidence when Fifa general secretary Jérôme Valcke comes to town a matter of weeks before the footballers and fans to warn that this World Cup is in danger of being remembered as the worse ever.
Poor organisation and spiralling costs have fuelled the anti-World Cup protests that engulfed the country during last year's Confederations Cup. The criticisms of those who took to the streets then were many but at their heart is the essentially justified claim that a swindle was perpetrated on the people when those behind the bid claimed, without any credible basis for believing it, that the private sector would bear the brunt of the financial burden involved.
Instead, as was always likely to be the case, the government will pick up a tab estimated at anything up to €11 billion. A little over a quarter of that, three times what had been originally estimated, will go on the stadiums themselves, a couple of which will not be finished in time and several of which are white elephants in the making.
Much of the remainder has been wasted or, at least, has failed to deliver the infrastructure intended while many of the legacy projects – most notably those relating to public transport around the host cities – have been the very things cancelled when savings were sought. It is difficult not to sympathise with the millions of poor who live in one of the world’s most divided societies and watch from the sidelines as gleaming palaces are constructed for sport.
The decision to stage these events is almost always controversial and South Africa faced many of the same criticisms and predictions of impending disaster four years ago. In the end, their tournament went well but the extravagant, grossly exaggerated claims of the trickle-down economic benefits that were about to accrue to the nation’s hard-pressed people have since been exposed for precisely the nonsense they were.
This time, the latter can be taken for granted but the former cannot and amongst the government’s more depressing precautions has been a spend of some €600 million on security apparatus and the promise that tens of thousands of additional personnel will be on the streets policing.
It all makes for a rather sad backdrop to what, for all the problems, might yet, we hope, be a tremendous tournament.
The scale of the Brazilian nation’s passion for the game explains the severity of the trauma experienced when they failed to win back in 1950, the first – and last – time they hosted the event. Five times champions since, Brazilians still agonise over the one that got away when, under the old round-robin system, they lost the last game 2-1 to neighbours Uruguay, when even a draw would have ensured the title.
Their performance at the Confederations Cup suggests the current team is in the mood to make amends and the organisers, even those from Switzerland one suspects, will be amongst those most enthusiastically cheering them on.
For most of the rest of us, the outcome will not matter so much as long as the football is good. Selfishly, many of us will sympathise with those protesters who take to the streets and share their abhorrence of the mistakes that have been made behind the scenes over the last few years while still embracing Brazilian artist Vik Muniz’s observation that: “the really magical things are the ones that happen right in front of you”.
World Cup’s are difficult things to call; some ignite and burn with memorable brightness, others never quite catch fire in the way we had hoped and it may well be the second or even third week this time before we know whether this is set to be remembered as a great tournament. The ingredients for a good one are certainly there and there are some ties with tremendous potential even over the opening days.
In 2002 he led what was, by Brazil's lofty standards, an ordinary enough team to the title and the return of Luiz Felipe Scolari has restored a sense of belief to Brazil's push for a sixth world crown. His selections sometimes disappoint the romantics but his sides play with purpose and the hosts were impressive as they came through, sometimes emphatically, to win the Confederations Cup last summer.
Whether they can do the same here, when it really matters, depends on a wide range of factors. They, of course, will have to perform but others might have to come up a little short too. There could well be a showdown as early as the tournament’s second round with the holders Spain and while the latter have looked a little tired since retaining their European title in such devastating fashion two years ago, their hugely-accomplished coach, Vicente Del Bosque, has positives to point to as he targets what would be an unprecedented fourth straight major title.
Having played a couple of games for Brazil, Diego Costa’s decision to declare for the champions is a major boost as long, that is, as he is fully fit. Alvaro Negredo’s form for Manchester City this season has also, at times, strengthened the case for a move away from the “false number nine” approach employed in Poland and Ukraine. Goals have been relatively difficult to come by since but that might change now.
The Barcelona-based stars, particularly Xavi, are not quite the force they were and the possession-based football they inspired may not be seen as the Holy Grail it was even in 2012. However, the success of Spanish clubs in Europe this year means many of the squad will still travel in confident mood. Whether they can rise to the physical challenge of it all again remains to be seen.
After that, take your pick. South America has three other teams – Colombia, Uruguay and Argentina – in the world’s top 10 at present and all will probably view themselves as being in with some sort of shout.
Argentina are clearly very serious contenders, although they may require Lionel Messi to be back to his best and to light up the tournament in a way he failed to do in South Africa. His coach, Alejandro Sabella does, to be fair, have quite an array of attacking talent at his disposal but there are persistent weaknesses at the back which mean he is likely to need all of his biggest stars to perform to their best if the title is really to be secured.
The pity for Colombia and Uruguay is that both have seen their hopes severely hit by injuries to star strikers; Radamel Falcao and Luis Suarez respectively. At the time of writing both are regarded as doubts for the tournament and while they might yet feature they would do incredibly well to be at their very best. In the circumstances, Chile, might be the other "local" side to make a big impact although there is the minor challenge of getting out of a group that includes Spain and the Netherlands to negotiate first.
Apart from the defending champions, the European challenge will be led by the Italy and Germany, both of whom were ultimately well beaten in the knockout stages of Euro 2012. Cesare Prandelli emerged with a great deal of credit from that tournament and while this is not exactly the greatest Italian squad ever to travel to a World Cup, few doubt the team’s ability to be in contention, at least if Andrea Pirlo can, at 35, physically cope with the challenge and the coach can again get the best out of the midfielder’s younger, less accomplished team-mates.
The Germans have a point to prove after the way Italy dumped them out two years ago but injuries and the somewhat erratic form suffered by key players this season are major concerns aside from which it is not entirely certain they are any better equipped in defence now to go all the way than they were then; certainly attack somehow remains a concern even for a team that outscored everyone in European qualification.
Miroslav Klose is getting on and while there is a dazzling array of attacking talent there are some worrying statistics ahead of a tournament in which they will face some stiffer defensive resistance; the relative lack of goals from set-pieces being one, the absence of a single one scored with a header being another.
After a terrible European Championship, the Netherlands should, like France, be dramatically improved but both now have young squads and to misquote slightly that old line from the singer/songwriter Antônio Carlos Jobim (The Girl from Ipanema is one of his) Brazil may not be for beginners.
How nice it would be, though, if they, or one of the less fancied outsiders really did make a big drive to steal the show. At this stage, though, the stars matter less than the show being one to remember.
