“As the World Cup in Brazil comes to an end without the predicted large-scale protests, there’s been a subtle but consistent message visible on the streets, as photo-journalist Gabriel Uchida has documented. ‘Pichação’ is the punk brother of graffiti. Pichadores don’t want to make art, they want to shock, to vandalize. It’s made to be ugly and agressive. In Brazil it was born in São Paulo and their main influence was the typography of punk rock and heavy metal band logos. Although it is illegal, it’s the most current cultural expression in the Brazilian streets. It’s possible to see ‘pichações’ everywhere, even at the top of the highest buildings. As it’s made to protest, recently Brazilian ‘pichações’ have found a new target: the World Cup.” World Cup 2014

The Rio the World Cup didn’t show
“There’s shit in the water. Two days after Brazil crashed out of the World Cup, on Thursday morning, one of Rio’s foremost sanitation activists, Leona Deckelbaum, came down to Copacabana Beach to work. She couldn’t help laughing. Tourists swam in the ocean across the street, and up and down the coast in both directions. In a city with a terrible sewage system even in the fancy neighborhoods and no complete sewage or water service in any of the 900-plus favelas, this is a terrible idea.” ESPN

“In writing on sport there is always a fine line between reading too much into what happens on the field and reading too little into it. The problem is particularly acute when it comes to the World Cup: no other sporting event creates the same torrent of hyperbole and cliché, or incites quite the same kind of grandiose pontificating. The best of sports writing and commentary manages to deal with this through a combination of grace, humor, and true emotion: something that the Men in Blazers have offered us, thankfully, on ESPN, and that has defined the wonderful writing of Brian Phillips for Grantland during the tournament.” New Republic – Laurent Dubois