Brazil is Woefully, Comfortably Behind on its World Cup 2014 Prep

Teixeira’s resignation comes after years checkered with corruption charges and about a week after FIFA’s secretary general, Jerome Valcke, ripped Brazil for sluggish preparations on such peripheral details as hotels, light rail systems and, um, stadiums. Valcke suggested to reporters that Brazil needed “a kick up the backside” to get moving. His uncommonly vivid choice of preposition did not sit well with the host country. Amid criticism from Brazilian officials, no less than Ronaldo came to Valcke’s defense. “His comments were unfortunate,” the very former athlete said, “but it does not mean he is not right.”

It also does not mean Brazil won’t pull itself together. Unlike their national squad, Brazilians at large are not only accustomed to playing from behind, they rather tend to prefer it. They even have a name for this approach to life, and if you’ve ever been an undergraduate, you can probably relate: jeitinho Brasileiro — “the Brazilian way,” roughly translated. It means that one will employ charm, or force, or cunning in the face of, well, whatever. Run this question past a Brazilian friend: Do you believe Brazil will be ready for the World Cup? The response is likely to sound a bit like the varying answers I’ve gotten when I’ve posed it to Brazilians lately. They’ll pull it together at the absolute last minute. Everything will move at this glacial pace (a fact of life in a country positively overgrown with bureaucracy). And yet, when the deadline truly threatens — it will get done. When FIFA President Sepp Blatter parachuted into Brasilia last week for less than a day, then bounced 21 hours later, you got the idea that no one expected anything different. Called into the dean’s office for failing grades, Brazil got its hair tousled and was sent on its way.

The Brazilian government has, rightly, come under scrutiny for some of the supposed clean-up it’s undertaken to prep for the 2016 Olympic Summer Games, which along with the World Cup stands to displace some 170,000 people nationwide. Brazil has gotten very rich very fast; it’s now the world’s fifth-largest economy and expanding. For good reason, the country is enjoying a nationwide sense of impunity these days. But somewhere between a kleptocratic young democracy and a reliable international power is a country that can deliver on promises to the world (i.e., that you’ll be able to get from the airport in Sao Paulo to an operational hotel). Freelancing is a hallmark of Brazilian soccer — the disorganization that Teixeira noted isn’t purely pejorative. It’s also a national point of pride. So when outlets such as CNN write that “there should be some concerns” about the state of World Cup preparation, they’re coming from a measured, rational place. But of course, the World Cup is headed to a country happy to be neither.