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2014 FIFA World Cup | Official Thread (pg. 6)
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Spacey Orange
no offense lira, but why the is the world cup held in brazil? all i hear is that's nothing, if not a disaster so far, there is not much public support, and it will be a drain on the government finances. |
No offence taken :)
It's a complex issue, often oversimplified by naysayers for a variety of reasons (ranging from cultural cringe to just plain ignorance). It's unlikely we can deliver The Best World Cup in Recorded History®, but we've hosted a World Cup before, and we were much poorer back then. At worst, it will be our Shochi. At best, it will be unremarkable, but hardly a disaster.
It all began in 2007, when FIFA picked Brazil as the South American host of the 2014 World Cup. It wasn't an absurd choice, given how the IOC chose Rio afterwards. Back then, Brazil was seen as an emerging economy (which we still are), poised to become a global player along with Russia, India, and China. Everyone was an optimist, and there was much jubilee over the fact we once overtook the UK as the 6th largest economy (though we've been changing positions back and forth ever since). FIFA wanted the games to be held in South America. The choice was obvious. That would explain why the protesters who are now outraged by the World Cup weren't outraged then.
The World Cup (and the Olympics) would bring about an infrastructural overhaul the country needed - that's why there are 12 cities hosting the games, as opposed to just 8 as usual. It would also be a crowning moment for the country, like the Seoul Olympics was for South Korea and the first Tokyo Olympics was for Japan. It was our opportunity to show our Western brethren we're all grown up, and everyone would benefit. Streets would be paved with flowers, children would sing all over our rainforests, and Stu would take pictures of exotic birds.
We're still doing pretty okay, but we've taken a hit. We're much richer than India and China (considering we've got just a sixth of the population), and the country has changed a lot for the better during my lifetime. The Labour Party pulled millions out of poverty. But, once you hit a plateau, you need to adjust before you move on... and that's where we are. The government failed to deliver the badly needed reforms. The average Joe can't understand why our booming economy (with high taxes) didn't turn our national health system into the British NHS (which is easy if your ignore the words "per capita" in GDP per capita). The fact is, we didn't reach European standards overnight.
If we managed to solve all infrastructural problems in an ideal world, the World Cup would showcase the country and tourists would flock (hoping we wouldn't need something akin to Australia's "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign to invite people over to visit us), revenue generated by tourism would inject a much needed money into our economy and we'd all benefit from the infrastructure, but it seems that's not quite what will happen. Some of the criticism is, therefore, completely valid. However, claiming it will be a disaster and "a drain on the government finances" is an extreme exaggeration. Will it be unremarkable? Probably. A drain on the government finances?! Now that's bloody preposterous! Although this will be the most expensive (and lucrative) World Cup ever (and this includes the badly needed work on infrastructure and security, results notwithstanding), that's 0,6% of our GDP, just so you can keep it in perspective. Those who reckon this money should be spent on school and hospitals should've thought of that before we took our chances 7 years ago. |
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| wotyzoid |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
At worst, it will be our Shochi. At best, it will be unremarkable, but hardly a disaster.
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I'm sorry Marcus, but it's tough to find a better word than "disaster" to describe the amount of money spent in relation to infrastructure problems. I say this from an outsider's perspective arriving here a month ago, it's absolute chaos. You might be used to it, but it's a disaster nonetheless. This is why, it's a disaster:
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Those who reckon this money should be spent on school and hospitals should've thought of that before we took our chances 7 years ago. |
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| LoveHate |
| qatar is way worse, how much is the death toll over there now ? :wtf: that one should be scrapped all together. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by wotyzoid
I'm sorry Marcus, but it's tough to find a better word than "disaster" to describe the amount of money spent in relation to infrastructure problems. I say this from an outsider's perspective arriving here a month ago, it's absolute chaos. You might be used to it, but it's a disaster nonetheless. This is why, it's a disaster: |
Oh, got it - that's why you say it's a disaster! Then I'm more inclined to agree with you. It's just that many Brazilians, it seems, mean by "disaster" that the stadiums will collapse, tourists will die in a reenactment of the Hunger Games, and Argentina will win. In short, the worst case scenario.
If by disaster you mean the money spent wasn't worth it, well, that's why I likened it to Sochi. It was the most expensive Winter Olympics ever (excessively so): While originally budgeted at US$12 billion, various factors caused the budget to expand to over US$51 billion, surpassing the estimated $44 billion cost of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as the most expensive Olympics in history. [Wikipedia] That's more than 3.5 World Cups... and it had loads of problems.
| quote: | Originally posted by LoveHate
qatar is way worse, how much is the death toll over there now ? :wtf: that one should be scrapped all together. |
Actually, it might. |
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| Dykes_on_Jay |
| Forza Italia. |
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| wotyzoid |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Oh, got it - that's why you say it's a disaster! Then I'm more inclined to agree with you. It's just that many Brazilians, it seems, mean by "disaster" that the stadiums will collapse, tourists will die in a reenactment of the Hunger Games, and Argentina will win. In short, the worst case scenario. |
No, no I didn't mean it like that at all. It's just really ing sad. A disaster.
| quote: | Originally posted by Dykes_on_Jay
Forza Italia. |
So cute, Jay, you guys aren't making it pass the 8th's. |
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| DOOMBOT |
The USA squad is going to need an enormous amount of luck to make it through the group stage. Altidore, their first option striker, has virtually no finish. This is going to be a major problem for them when going up against the teams in their group.
I'm still going with Brazil as the favourite to win. Fred wins the golden boot! :D |
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| Lagrangian |
I'm rooting for USA, England, Spain, and Chile...
Oh and Honduras! |
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| Meat187 |
It looks like Germany will fail horribly. Drew a friendly yesterday with Cameroon 2-2. Some notable problems are:
- A lot of important players are injured or just recovering from injury and thus completely out of form: Schweinsteiger, Khedira, Neuer and Lahm
- Özil is ridiculously out of form. He started strongly for Arsenal but for some months now he has been piss poor.
- We have no striker. Gomez is injured, Klose is a grandpa and long past his prime and Volland is a nobody with no experience.
- The defense is utter . We concede 1-3 goal against almost anyone. This doesn't seem to be a problem of the players, as there are some strong guys playing there (central defenders like Hummels, Mertesacker and Boateng) but rather terrible tactics.
- And that brings about the biggest problem: Jogi Löw. He seems incapable of solving any of the issues.
I expect that we somehow pass the group stage with three unconvincing games and then go out as soon as we meet the first team that is able to defend reasonably well. Probably even Honduras could score against us. |
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| LoveHate |
http://rt.com/news/162340-graffiti-brazil-football-worldcup/
some nice graffiti work , btw have any players/coaches/ or anyone that will be present at the games this year come out and said anything about the conflict ? it seems like they all seem to be pretty hush about it , at least any of the notable ones. |
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| DOOMBOT |
| The players who have spoken up seem to support the protests, as long as they are not violent. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
It looks like Germany will fail horribly. Drew a friendly yesterday with Cameroon 2-2. |
Actually, the main problem for most European squads, methinks, is that the weather is going to be a mess: Manaus will be unbelievably hot, Brasilia will be incredibly dry (and cool), and hell knows what Southern cities will be like. I don't think Europeans are used to such changes in such a short period of time. Not to mention travel distances.
Germany lucked out, actually, playing solely in the North-East during the group stage. England will play first in Manaus (in the Amazon) and then in São Paulo (a somewhat mountainous region in the South-East). These cities are almost three thousand kilometres apart. They're further apart than London and Moscow, or Barcelona and Stockholm. And all these matches will happen in a two-week period.
Although this could just be a coincidence, this may explain why Uruguay went on to win the only other World Cup we hosted, back in 1950. Unlike all other squads, who played two games in the group stage, they played a pity match against Bolivia and didn't leave the South-East.
So I wouldn't write Germany off so quickly. You'll travel a lot less than we will ourselves! |
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