“The war cry of Ronaldo, Sepp Blatter, the President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff and the rest of Brazil and FIFA’s great and good is about as considered a pronouncement as a turkey’s gobble. And yet in its sunny patriotism and glossing over of the cold reality of delays, mismanagement, overspending and dead construction workers it neatly captures a chunk of the troubled optimism/pessimism dichotomy that lies at the heart of Brazilian society. Everything may be a mess and there isn’t much sign of improvement on the way, but hey — God is Brazilian, carnaval is coming, we’re still pretty good at football and the weather is nice most of the time. So things could be worse. Life in Brazil can sometimes seem not so much a case of if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it; but rather it’s always been broken, so there’s not much point in trying to fix it.” ESPN

Are Brazilian managers an endangered species?
“For Latin American and Portuguese news crews running around the Costa do Sauipe resort in northeastern Brazil during the buildup for the 2014 World Cup final draw, life was hectic. Argentines, for example, needed to be sure they kept tabs on the Albiceleste manager Alejandro Sabella; at the same time they “doorstepped” fellow countrymen Jorge Sampaoli and Jose Pekerman for a reaction on Chile’s and Colombia’s expectations before and after the draw. The Portuguese had to worry about ‘Quinas’ manager Paulo Bento, but also make sure that former Real Madrid commander and Sir Alex Ferguson deputy Carlos Queiroz, now in charge of Iran, would also be covered, as well as Greece’s ‘mister’ Fernando Santos.” ESPN