lucas_leobas

I can almost listen to what Juvenal Juvêncio (SPFC 130-year-old president)'s mind when he learnt that FIFA wanted good visibility in the lower tier so that FIFA could charge more for the tickets: "Ok, let's extend part of the tier so they can actually see the game and pay some extra. The rest of the stadium will still be crap though, no problem about that, right?". SPFC is determined to doing the minimum they possibly can and spend the lowest possible amount of money to get the opening game. Every private enterprenour wants that, so it doesn't come as a surprise. I just get staggered at how o

Here's what's going on in São Paulo: we're not getting a public stadium. Our state government has other priorities and we can't blame them. Right now the public opinion seems to support such decision, but I think we may have a considerable backlash when it's announced that there will be no opening game or semifinals in the city. FIFA and São Paulo Futebol Clube (SPFC - Morumbi Stadium's owner) were getting along pretty well in the last few months. FIFA made it pretty clear that Morumbi Stadium needed changes in order to host important games in the WC and SPFC were accepting them and making ch

First of all, Sir Roltel seemed to have REALLY liked Watermelon Woman and all the rest of the fruit women. I love how we are getting bizarre versions of it: I just googled Mulher-Xtudão and wow! Great translation, Danny, by the way. Big Mac Woman sounds awesome . But I have bad news: Fruit women is very 2008 right now. Créu had a little revival in October with the whole "Yes we créu" fad, but now it's pretty much gone. "Watermelon Woman", however, is an expression that has gone into our pop culture and I'm pretty sure it'll be remembered for a whole generation, just like "Bootylicious" in A

Everyone just loves a conspiratory plot. But, no, Catra, there is absolutely no evidence that Jerome Valcke may be advantaged in any way from the construction of a new stadium in São Paulo, Manaus or wherever. And saying that Mastercard questioned his fairplay does little to prove the opposite. He's just making sure that Brazil abide by the rules it accepted when chosen hosts of the World Cup. He's not making any absurd demands, or demands that aren't contained in FIFA's guidelines. I'm not going to discuss the rest of the post because this forum is not the place to discuss the concept of so

Funny thing how outraged how some of you guys get once Jim Jones starts speaking about the developed countries, and then you start trying to belittle India in this thread. I've never got through one of his posts because he doesn't use commas, but I bet most of the facts stated by him are actually true. So it's not a matter of accuracy, but rather the way information is told. And I've seen a lot of disrespect towards India in the previous pages, by A LOT of people. I know 90% of the posts are just expressions of concern towards India's preparations to the CWG, but the other 10% can be really o

Are baba, the stereotype is right!!! (sorry, this is an in-joke for telenovela-watching Brazilians - I know, ANOTHER stereotype )

wow, I didn't know Santiago had given up the organization of pretty much ALL multi-sports events they were awarded.

If we consider strictly the stadium aspect, I would say that Curitiba's situation is one of the most worrying. The project presented to FIFA would cost R$138 million. Now that they have been chosen as hosts, Atlético Parananse say that they will spend only R$38 million unless another private partner steps in or the government helps (which will obviously not happen). All in all, this isn't such a huge problem, since Curitiba will probably only receive first-phase games, and the stadium could be used as it is right now. So, this will not really happen: But of course Curitiba is a great city a

This whole discussion about the Morumbi stadium is eclipsing all the other debates about the World Cup, but we have many other problems going on. I'm pretty sure at this point the Brasília will have the opening match and São Paulo will host until quarterfinals with a refurbished Morumbi. And, even if Brasília can't do it, we still have Maracanã. This is the least of our problems. The real problem is that the works have to start until March, and no public stadium has even published the calling announcement to the procurement/public-private partnerships (actually I think Salvador is the only on

1 - The current SPFC project is already too expensive: a R$250-million renovation to a stadium that only generates an annual profit of R$11 million is already overambitious. But what they are putting on the table is still not enough. The capacity is low and SPFC doesn't want to lower the stands in order to get them closer to the pitch. Not the mention the problems in the surroundings, that were only partially resolved in the last project amendment. There have been reports of people within the São Paulo committee supporting that the city gives up on hosting the opening match, because of not o

I had never stopped to take a look at all the plans of the 2012 Olympic Games, and all I can say is these are going to be some HUGE games (for the good or for the bad). Like, Beijing Hugeness. I can't deny that it sounds crazy to me to spend so much money in venues that will be used for 2 weeks and then be dismantled (550 million pounds in that stadium? ), but I can say that, during those two weeks, we will have the Olympic Games in the most beautiful venues of the world. And that beautiful park will still be there. What an Olympic plan! Almost everything is concentrated in a single region

The Olympic race is over, now I can freely talk about all the World Cup organizational problems. 1 - As stated by aluz, Morumbi has many problems even with the new project, specially lack of space in its surroundings. It has been criticized over and over, and the Brazilian media likes to say that FIFA is blackmailing São Paulo into building a new white elephant. They're obviously just trying to make São Paulo comply with the FIFA rules, whose existence the committee was aware much before being awarded the WC. The question is if they're gonna get a free pass from FIFA like Berlin got in 2006,