Sao Paulo Sweats Ahead Of Big Kick-Off

It is a fact of modern mega-events that the prophesies of doom seldom come to pass.

Athens, Germany, Beijing, South Africa and London all know the routine.

These recent Olympic or World Cup hosts all suffered years of anxieties over preparations which, while honestly reported, never proved quite so debilitating once the actual sport took everyone's mind off it.

That may yet prove to be the case in Brazil.

But with five days to go the hosts still cannot shake off the sense that, for all the assurances that it will be all right on the night, it might not.

There can be few cities as challenging in which to raise the curtain than São Paulo.

A megalopolis of 20 million people, it is never easy to get around.

Throw in a 48-hour Metro strike that left even Fifa's VVIPs crawling for three hours and you wonder how fans without a courtesy Hyundai will manage it.

At the refurbished Arena Corinthians in which Brazil will meet Croatia on Thursday, workers busily tried to make good despite incessant rain.

The PA, being thoroughly tested, played Thunderstruck by AC/DC on a loop, demonstrating either a love of heavy metal or a a sly sense of humour.

Back on the metro, a stand-off between police and demonstrators ended with baton rounds and tear gas fired.

For all Brazil's love of football, its antipathy to Fifa and its World Cup will not be easily forgotten.

Grim Reading For Fifa

Any Fifa delegates browsing a copy of The Economist on a plane bound for the Fifa Congress in Sao Paulo are in for a shock.

Prompted by new allegations of corruption concerning the award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, the latest edition savages Fifa's leadership and governance.

"Why is the world's greatest game led by such a group of mediocrities, notably Sepp Blatter?" asks the magazine, before describing Fifa's president as a "dinosaur" who would have been kicked out of any other boardroom in the 1970s.

It is strong stuff but, as one Fifa executive committee member put it privately: "It is hard to argue with a single word of it."

Coming 48 hours after a similar assault in an FT editorial, the Economist's attack is significant.

Like the FT it has international clout, and is not easily dismissed as part of an "English media conspiracy".

(A quick secret about the conspiracy: there isn't one.)

The controversy, set to deepen with more revelations promised by the Sunday Times, is hugely damaging to Fifa's reputation.

Brazilians are not the only ones counting the hours until the football starts.

Brazil Packs Family Appeal

Brazil's final warm-up against Serbia was not much of a game but it was a splendid occasion.

Around 40,000 fans beat the strike to get to the Morumbi Stadium, the majority of them young and many, many of them women and children.

Family groups are an increasingly rare sight in English football, but in Brazil adoration for the Selecao and the yellow shirt starts young, and endures.

Not much unites this vast, unequal country, but in the next month football may do just that.