Almost here.

As most of us college students prepare for finals, people all around the word are preparing for the World Cup. The people in Brazil are more than ready, not only for the tournament but for better education. Brazilians are still in riots over their politics, Education is falling more and more off the global average. Brazil has spent so much money on not only the world cup, but also the 2016 summer Olympics. Yet apparently they do not have enough money to acquire better education for their underlings. This just shows how big futbol is in south America, that it is the priority over better education. The world cup is officially 50 days away, kicking off on June 12th, just 50 days!!! I will miss the opener between Brazil and Croatia, and possibly the biggest game in the group stage, Spain vs. Netherlands because I will be working camp. Very disappointing but it will be ok. However, my main focus at this point is to be ready for finals so I can make the best GPA possible. Hopefully I will make a 3.6 this semester, which follows the same the ladder semester. If I am going to transfer to Baylor next spring, I need to transfer with a 3.7 so it will be quite close. Get excited for the World cup people, only 50 days.

College

During this first year of college I have learned a lot. However, ittle has been learned in a classroom desk, but most has been learned by experience. Now that my freshman year is coming to a close it is safe to say that UMHB is a great choice if you want higher Christian education. I enjoyed taking the new testament and old testament courses, and also enjoyed my Wednesdays at 11:00. Going into the fall semester of my sophomore year, I expected my course load to be much tougher, but turns out next semester is going to be awesome! I have a 12, 1, 2 o’cock on MWF consisting of business classes. Nothing on Tuesday and Thursday and an online art appreciation class. These courses along with the soccer season makes me rather excited. This summer I plan to not waste a second. From May – June I will be volunteering my time at Kanakuk, a Christian sports camp in Branson Missouri, I will also volunteer at a younglife retreat in Colorado, and travel to Bermuda with my UMHB soccer team. All these will be fun, but the majority of my excitement is that from June 12 – July 13 I will not miss a second of the FIFA World Cup. As I have said, I am rooting for Belgium, hoping that they can make a Cinderella story and shock the world. Although this will probably not happen because the soccer gods of Spain will more than likely run over everyone, which is not so bad because Spain are one of my favorites as well. The reason I write about college in this blog is to say that I am glad the world cup is during the summer rather than a semester. One of the biggest things I have learned this year is that a college student has zero time for tv if he/she wants to have a social life, and not gain the freshman 15. I am excited that school is almost over for the year, however I will miss this class.

Why I chose this topic

I chosee this topic for a number of reasons. For one, ive played for as long as i can remember and I love watching games professionally. My favorite teams incliude Belgium, Spain, and of course the powerhouse of the United States. When i say powerhouse I say that jokingly of course, because the U.S is horrible. We are however, getting better each year but this world cup is definitely not going to our year. We play our first three games agaisnt Germany, whom is number 3 in the world, Portugal, who is #7 in the world, and Ghana whom we have never beaten. So basically we are screwed and will be lucky if we even score more than one goal. Belgium are full with upcoming young players that have potential to be the best in the world. And Spain of course are on the hottest hot streak there has ever been in late soccer history. Spain won the 2008 European Cup, the 2010 Fifa World Cup, and the 2012 European Cup. It is safe to say they are the favorites facing Brazil and Germany. My hope for this world cup is that belgium will make the final four and that the final will bring an amazing show with the spaniards victorious. That is why i chose this topic, because of the adrenaline this one month creates.

Why the World Cup?

In this article I will talk about why the FIFA World cup came to be, and why it is the #1 watched event in the world. FIFA was founded in 1904 in France, standing for Federation Internationale de Football Association. The need for this organization became apparent to the leaders of the soccer world in the late 20th century. Immediately Spain, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, France, and Belgium joined the association. Ever since, Fifa has grown into the most notable sport association in the world. Headquartered in Zurich, FIFA has six subordinate football associations, one for each continent. The board of FIFA enforces the laws , rules, and punishment from the teams involved to the fans. As I said in my previous account the FIFA World Cup began in 1930. Its reasoning during its inaugural opening almost resembled the reasoning behind the Olympic Games. To unite the many nations of the world through competition and create peace through their competitiveness, just replace “games” with only futbol; and the best 32 at that. Another reason behind the creation of the World Cup was of course the economics behind it. As I have talked about before, the World Cup generates a ridiculous amount of revenue. However, the cost to build for this enormous tournament is also incredibly expensive, making the profit not as much as it could be. The world cup is the #1 event watched in the world every four years. The final doubles the amount of viewers the Super Bowl and the Oscars brings combined. And the amount of viewers within the one month of the world cup is incomparable. Why is that? it is because soccer (football) is the most prevalent sport in the world, it is the sport of the common people. We can conclude that the answer to the question I posed in the title is that FIFA successfully brings together the many nations of the world while also creating an economic whirlwind.

Previous Fifa World Cups

This article focuses primarily on the previous World Cups of the past years, because the 2014 tournament in Brazil is planning to out-do these world cups I am going to be talking about. The FIFA world cup officially started in 1930 when Uruguay hosted the inaugural Cup. Only four European teams made the long sea journey down to the host nation, only to be beaten by the South American teams. Uruguay beat their neighbors Argentina in the Final to win the first World Cup ever. Funfact: USA placed third in the tournament and since have never been in the final four. Next in 1934, Italy hosted the Cup and followed through by beating Czechoslovakia to win the Cup. Italy would win again 4 years later beating Hungary when France hosted the tournament. Brazil hosted the 1950 Cup and were beat by Uruguay in the final, this was the last Cup brazil had hosted before this year. At this point the World Cup was extremely popular quickly coming to be the most watched month of any type of entertainment every four years. The next victors include, Germany 1954, Brazil 1958, Brazil 1962, England as a host country in 1966, Brazil again in 1970, Germany 1974, Argentina 1978, Italy 1982, Argentina 1986, and Germany in 1990. Now we are in our lifetime, in 1994 The United States hosted the most successful World Cup in history up to that point. Brazil would beat Italy in the finals to win the cup, the games were played from California all the to New York. The last four victors have been France in 1998, Brazil in 2002, Germany in 2006 and finally the best team in the world Spain won in South Africa in 2010. Brazil has the best record followed by Italy and Argentina. This years world cup is going to be a good one, Spain are favorites because they haven’t lost since 2008, however Germany are also favorites because they have 10 of the top 25 best players in the world. Not to mention Brazil, don’t be surprised if they win it all, having one of the best goal-scorers in the world and an entire nation backing them up, this World cup is going to be the best one yet. Go USA.

Marketing

The 2014 World Cup is a great opportunity for Brazil, not only for their chance to market for business but a chance to market for unity. Brazil’s World Cup logo is a topic in itself, the title being “Inspiration. The idea is that it will portray three victorious hands together lifting up the trophy. There have been many critics of this logo however, saying that the three hands are covering the face of Brazil in shame, an invalid argument. The colors of green and yellow in the design mean that Brazil are welcoming the world into their country with open hands. The official song of the Cup, which was announced a couple months ago, “We Are One” is sang by artists’ PitBull and Jennifer Lopez. Based on history these official world Cup songs are always in the top 5 songs of that year, so hopefully it will live up to that. The mascot, a tatu-bola, is an armadillo in South America that in defense will roll up into a ball protected by its outer shell. The design of this mascot made by FIFA was unnamed until a decision was made to name him “Fuleco”. Fuleco can be described as a combination of the words “Futebol” and “Ecologia” meaning that Brazil intends to put on not only Eco-friendly games, but games that will spread joy and unite the people through the beautiful game of soccer. The World Cup isn’t just a tournament to make profit by revenue but a tournament to form a profitable relationship between the counter-people of these competing nations, and these two designs are just a couple ways in which they plan to do so.

Teams

The 2014 FIFA World Cup will undoubtedly bring in an immeasurable amount of money and revenue into the businesses of Brazil, but the question is if it will bring a profit to Brazil as a whole? The world cup will accompany 32 of the best countries from around the world. From South America, Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Uruguay, Ecuador, and Chile will be competing. From North America, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, and the United States will be there. From Europe, Spain, England, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Italy, Germany, Greece, Russia, Portugal, and Iran. From Asia you have Japan, Australia, and Korea. Finally from Africa the teams competing are Ghana, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Nigeria, and Cameroon.  Of these 32 nations I see that barring the African nations and a few others, every Country will travel to brazil in considerable numbers. 2.3 million tickets have already been sold and they expect that to double by June. Of those 4 million tickets, over 3 million will need to buy plane tickets, hotels, food, and miscellaneous souvenirs from beautiful Brazil. According to history, the average revenue a world cup makes will allow Brazil to make within a million dollars of the cost. So if Brazil will or will not profit is the question everyone is asking. There is no way we can really know 100%, but economists will have a close idea. Its going to be close, it all depends on the European nations and if they show up in full force or not.

Stadiums

For the 2014 Fifa World Cup, Brazil has developed a playground of stadiums. Presenting 12 different host cities with a stadium named to each. These sites include stadiums like, Arena Da Baixada (Curtiba), Arena Purnambuco (Recife), Arena de Sao Paulo (Sao Paulo), and Estadio Maracano (Rio de Janeiro). The cost of building these 12 stadiums has surpassed all expectations, costing Brazil over 3.4 billion dollars just for the stadiums and the total preparation for the World Cup costing around 14 billion dollars. Prices that have been unheard of to this point, and prices that Brazil’s politics do not have the assets for. The biggest news so far in the construction of these stadiums came on November 27th in Sao Paulo when a portion of the stadium collapsed. Three causualties were accounted for during the collapse. Although officials say that the stadium will be ready for the opening game on June 12, no one believes it. In conclusion, six out of the twelve stadiums being built in Brazil are still in construction making it difficult to say for sure if they will be ready to start on time.

Political unrest in Brazil

The nomination of Brazil for the 2014 World Cup couldnt have come at a worse of a time. Brazil is currently experiencing a economic collapse of serveral key foundations including infrastructure, taxes, and health care. Not only is the government spending millions of dollars on building stadiums and hotels for the world cup, but also more stadiums are more buildings for the 2016 summer olympics in Rio. Not enough money was saved for public defense, which in return allows for riots to form more easily. Middle class families as well as middle-age kids are rioting because of the outrageous prices to gain a higher education with financhial aid desperatly falling away. Crowds are growing each day in Brazil as this summer approaches. Do you think that Brazil is “unlucky” per-say that this economic problem is happening while they are preparing for the World Cup, or do you think they brought it upon (the government) themselves?

Effects of the 2014 World Cup on Brazil

I chose the topic of “The Effects of the 2014 World Cup on Brazil” because it is actually a very interesting proposal. The questions and perspectives raised in this topic are ones that i find interesting because I personally am a soccer player. The term “effects” can go as far as workers in construction of the stadiums, to the political controversy in Brazil, to the passion for the game. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, In June of this year the biggest event in the world (The World Cup) is being held in Brazil, whom is already in political unrest.