SAO PAULO // Something is not quite right. No matter how quickly I speak or how many words I jumble together into seemingly incoherent sentences, the good folks at Extra Time keep inviting me back to speak about the World Cup and the Brazil experience. On this week's show, alongside Jonathan Raymond, we look ahead to the quarter-finals, discuss the merits of having a stadium in the jungle and how I lucked-out while looking for a last-minute bed in Porto Alegre. To listen, click here. If you would rather hear a baby cry, try this. ISWAS |
0 Comments
World Cup Diary is being published in The National. It will be reproduce here in its entirety as each entry is short and written in blog form.
Fifa gets plenty of deserved criticism, but their spectator parks – one in each host city, stocked with everything you might need, and showing football on several large screens – are something worth commending. Perhaps it is because it is very un-Fifa-like: water, sun lotion and other bare necessities are allowed in, unlike at the multimillion-dollar arenas.
Brazil versus Cameroon took place in Brasilia, the capital city, yet watching on a massive screen in the middle of the Amazon jungle, surrounded by yellow-shirted locals and burning in the tropical sun, offered an alternative experience. In Manaus, we are closer to Miami than we are to Sao Paulo, yet the patriotism is stronger than ever. When the anthem rang, so did my ears, for several minutes afterwards. The atmosphere at Brazil games has at times seemed a bit tense, the fans a bit impatient. In the Fan Fest, there was nothing but admiration – even for Hulk, who got the biggest cheer of the night when his name was read out pre-match. The celebrations when Neymar scored the opening goal was nothing short of unbridled joy and when Fernandinho netted the fourth, the scenes were just as zealous. Sure, fans would prefer to be inside the stadium, but inside a fan fest – whisper it – the atmosphere can sometimes be even better. ISWAS World Cup Diary is being published in The National. It will be reproduced here in its entirety as each entry is short and written in blog form.
Thousands of English, Italian, American and Portuguese fans would undoubtedly agree the long trip north to get here is a journey worth making. A boat trip can take you to the meeting of the waters, where the black Rio Negro runs alongside the murky, brown Amazon River without mixing.
It is a phenomenal sight and made all the better by the prospect of swimming with pink dolphins. But nowhere else on Earth can capture the imagination like the sight of a 5.4 million-square-kilometre rainforest. Nowhere. ISWAS World Cup Diary is being published in The National. It will be reproduced here in its entirety as each entry is short and written in blog form.
|
Gary MeenaghanSports scribbler. Pedant with prose. Alliteration addict. Omnivore. Archives
July 2016
Categories
All
|