While it should come as no suprise to anyone today it was made offical that Brazil will host the 2014 FIFA World Cup. I say no suprise as FIFA had a stupid rotation system to ensure that each continent got a chance to host it. So we went from Asia, to Europe, next up Africa and then South America. Yet for the South American bids, no country other than Colombia even put together a real bid, and they dropped out back in April, so it was just a matter of pulling the one name out of the hat that was in the hat. Yet it was made official today.
Now i'm extremely excited for this on many reason. First Brazil is near or at the top of my list of countries to visit. I know I will get there way before 2014, and realistically if things go well, by 2014 I hope to have a vacation home in Brazil, and be speaking Portuguese. Yep its that special of a country, between their smarts to get Energy independent back during the 1970s oil shock, to the bevy of just insanely beautiful super models, to its Football/Soccer tradition, this is a country on that on the upswing. In fact I think i'm going to buy some shares of ticker EWZ, the iShares NYSE ADR that tracks the performance of the Brazil stock market, heck by 2014 at the current kick ass rate of return, a small $1000 investment might pay for your whole World Cup trip.
While the 2010 South Africa World Cup is seemingly right around the corner, heck many nations have started their qualifying campaigns already, I'm just not as excited about that world cup. The 22hr flight from USA is a killer, plus their issues with crime, lack of infrastructure, etc still have me believe that the World Cup will be pulled from there in a few years. While i've recently read that stadium construction is going well, with the poverty and issues that Africa faces, one must honestly think could that money be better spent for clean drinking water, AIDS programs/prevention/drugs, hospitals, education, transportation etc. Yet the USA squad for 2010 is something you can start to take shape in your head now, with players like Altidore, Adu, Feilhaber, Bradley, Howard all having shines recently and only getting better in the next 3 years.
Brazil while the country is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, will also have to do some work. The fact that it is the 5th largest country in the world in area and population, transportation is going to be an issue. Brazil never developed a rail system, and the road system is shoddy at best. The country surely will use this chance at the world cup to start to work on these systems. With a booming growth in exports, they can use better roads and rails, way before and after any soccer games are played. Right now the best means of transportation thru the country is by planes, and with 2 large catastrophic plane crashes in the last few years, even this system is not up to standards.
The distances between potential host cities is LARGE as you can see in this map I made with cities in consideration marked. FIFA will narrow these 18 cities, down to between 8 or 10, but still some trips might be over 1,200 miles between cities and currently taking buses might take up to 2 days for some of these trips. Yet with a soccer-mad nation, and recent success in hosting the Pan American Games, and always in the running for a summer Olympics, I know Brazil can do it!!!
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