Veja, the most influential Brazilian magazine, published some time ago a guide of best hotels in Brazil; the guide sorts hotels by city and event (such as “the best hotel for the Sao Paulo Fashion Week in Sao Paulo“), and is still a good indicator of the finest hotels in Brazil.

In Sao Paulo: Hotel Unique (photo below),  Sofitel, Transamerica, Grande Hotel Senac. See other hotels in Sao Paulo.

In Rio de Janeiro: Le Meridien, Sheraton, Pousada Pardieiro. See other hotels in Rio de Janeiro.

In Santa Catarina: Plaza Blumenau. See other hotels in Florianopolis.

In Salvador: Bahia Othon. See other hotels in Salvador.

In Curitiba: Mabu Royal and Premium Hotel. See other hotels in Curitiba.

In Brasilia: Melia. See other hotels in Brasilia.

In Recife: Atlante Plaza. See other hotels in Recife.

In Natal: Serhs (photo below). See other hotels in Natal.

In Fortaleza: Bluetree. See other hotels in Fortaleza.

In and near Manaus: Tropical, Amazon River, Crowne Plaza. See other hotels in Manaus.

The State of Rio, owner of Maracanã, informed yesterday that one company and five consortiums will participate of the bidding process to take the contract. These consortiums paid 1% of the estimated total cost (i.e., about U$ 4 million) just to have the right to present their bids.

As expected, all major Brazilian companies will be participating of this process; these companies are the same ones which will be building or rebuilding the other stadiums of the World Cup 2014.

The company bidding alone is OAS.

The Consortiums are:

Consortium Brasil 2014: Sanerio, BA Engenharia e Meio Ambiente and Hexagonal Construções.
Consortium Construcap-Cetenco-Convap Maracanã: Construcap-CCPS Engenharia, Cetenco and Convap.
Consortium Novo Maracanã: Queiroz Galvão, Carioca Christiani-Nielsen.
Consortium Novo Maracanã Paulitec-Estacon-Recoma: Paulitec, Estacon Engenharia and Recoma.
Consortium Maracanã Rio 2014: Andrade Gutierrez, Odebrecht and Delta.

The biggest civil engineering companies in Brazil are: OAS, Queiroz Galvão, Andrade Gutierrez and Odebrecht.

These companies operate most major civil works in Brazil (roads and bridges, public buildings, hydroelectric plants, etc), they have contracts in several countries (particularly Latin America and Africa).

These companies will certainly get contracts not only to rebuild the stadiums, but to work in all major infrastructure work for the World Cup 2014: airports, ports, new roads, etc. Update, July 22nd: Andrade Gutierrez and Via Engenharia have just won a contract to rebuild the Brasilia Stadium, the second most expensive project for 2014.

The President Lula recently issued a Provisional Law reducing bureaucracy to build airports, but such Law doesn’t benefit Stadiums. So, the bidding process will to have to go through several steps, and it will take at least a couple of weeks for the process to finish and the contractor to be known.

This problem afflicts the organizers of the World Cup 2014, as well. And no other city is more under scrutiny than Rio de Janeiro, the most important of the host cities of the Cup, and the host of the Olympic Games of 2016.

Rio is aware of the responsibility, and is taking measures to reduce violence.

For many years the Government treated violence combat as a war, where the enemies (mostly drug traffickers) should be killed; this is well portrayed in the movie City of God (which is voted as one of the 20 best movies of all times). The problem with this strategy is that many innocent civilians are also killed, and the survivors start to see the Police as an enemy as evil as the traffickers; and, whereas Police come and go, the traffickers are always around.

Recently, the strategy was changed. The Government is now creating UPP – Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora – Pacifying Police Units – in the most violent areas of Rio.

Every UPP has a physical structure, with a well sized staff. The Police officers  (as much as possible, only recently recruited people) are assigned to an specific UPP, hence creating links with the community.  In case the goals to reduce violence are met, the UPP staff gain a salary bonus.

Besides, along with every UPP (and the subsequent reduction in violence), the Government builds schools, health centers, leisure spaces; and trailing the Government, come the utilities companies (electricity, transportation, internet, etc).

The idea is to make the communities (whose vast majority is composed by honest, working people) believe that, rather than violence and traffic,  now the Law and Order should reign.

The graphic to the left shows that, even though there is still a long way to go, the levels of violence in Rio have been consistently decreasing.

Number of murderers is coming to 30 per 100,000 inhabitants; for comparison, in South Africa this figure is about 49.6 per 100,000 (source is here; figure quoted as of June 2010, and may change in the future).

The arena Maracazinho was seriously damaged. Maracanã, the stadium which should stage the final match of the World Cup 2014, was also flooded – an international match had to be postponed.

FIFA already learned about the news. FIFA’s concern is, obviously, how the World Cup could be affected by the rain.

The graph below, made by the Official Weather Institution in Brazil, shows the average precipitation levels (blue bars) and temperature (orange line) for the city of Rio de Janeiro.

The graph shows that the rainy season starts with the summer, in December, and lasts through April. However, the graph shows also that even in the drier months of June and July (when the World Cup 2014 should happen), there is still a considerable probability of raining.

But raining would not be a big problem, if the city were prepared to face it. Most of the  host cities have a bad draining/sewage system, combined with a bad rubish collection system; as a consequence, the rubish blocks the draining holes, and the water floods the cities.

Besides, several host cities are surrounded by hills and mountains, and many people live near the  top, coast and foot of them. This unordered occupation combined with heavy rains result, year after year, in landslidings and deaths.

FIFA set March 1st 2010 as the deadline for all hosts to have started the works to build or refurbish the stadiums; today, March 3rd 2010, only three of the hosts have started some works (but not one brick has been laid – see report further below).

A few weeks ago, FIFA expressed preoccupation with the delays in South Africa;  “if the World Cup started tomorrow, we wouldn’t be ready”, said Secretary General Jerome Valcke. Yesterday, when celebrating the 100 days countdown to the 2010 World Cup, Valcke declared that “FIFA won’t have with Brazil the same patience they did with South Africa“.

CBF sent a message to all host cities, demanding explanations for the delays. A new deadline was set to start works: May 3rd. CBF said that cities which don’t comply with deadlines may loose their rights to host matches. The deadline for all stadia to be finished continues to be December 31st 2012, six months before the kick off of the Confederations Cup 2013.

Current situation of the stadiums:

Belo Horizonte: works scheduled to start on June 12nd; the Government is still looking for private partners to finance the works.

Brasília: works were scheduled to start in April; however, a case of corruption came out, and the ex-Governor was impeached and is under arrest. Political indefinition will probably cause delays.

Cuiabá: works scheduled to start on March 23rd.

Curitiba: Atlético Paranaense, owner of the stadium Arena da Baixada, estimates that they will need R$ 80 million to adapt the stadium to FIFA demands; now, they are looking for the money.

Fortaleza: works scheduled to April. The bidding process was started in December 2009, contractor to be known late March.

Manaus: Prosecutors required changes in the bidding process; works are scheduled to start in April.

Natal: bidding process to start in April; works to start in June.

Porto Alegre: Internacional, owner of Beira-Rio, claims that some internal refurbishments were already started; however, nothing in the structure was changed. Internacional is claiming tax exemptions to buy construction material to refurbish the stadium.

Recife: works to start in May. According to the local committee, delays were caused by late changes in the project to adapt it to environmental laws.

Rio de Janeiro: the local committee says that sub-soil studies have started on March 1st; clearly, a cosmetic measure to pretend to comply with FIFA deadlines. The bidding for the major works will be launched in April.

Salvador: the bidding process is finished, the contractor is defined, but the Goverment still need money and environment licenses to start the works.

São Paulo: probably (and suprisingly), Morumbi is the stadium with most problems. Neither Sao Paulo FC (owner of the stadium) nor the Governments want to spend money with the stadium. Some changes were made to the project which had been originally approved, but FIFA didn’t like the changes; FIFA President Joseph Blatter said that “Morumbi doesn’t meet the FIFA requirements to stage the opening match of the World Cup 2014“.

Stadia are ordered by capacity, for this is a major criterium used by FIFA to decide where the most important matches (such as opening, quarter finals, semi finals and final matches) will be staged.

In 2014, there will be 12 host cities; in 1950, there were only six: Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte and Recife. Those were the six largest Brazilian cities in 1950 (Brasilia still didn’t exist; it was founded in 1960).

All these six cities will be host again in 2014. However, only one of the six stadiums used in 1950 will be used again in 2014: Maracanã; Maracanã was built for the 1950 World Cup, and staged both the opening and the final matches of that Cup.

Two of the 1950 are still in use and are regularly stage of important matches: Ilha do Retiro, in Recife, and Pacaembu, in Sao Paulo; both fit about 35,000 attendants, and with some refurbishment could reach 40,000, FIFA’s standard for a World Cup.

The other three stadia are still standing, but only stage occasional less important matches, and are too small to host a World Cup match: stadium Sete de Setembro (September 7th), in Belo Horizonte, will be replaced by Mineirão; stadium Durival de Brito, in Curitiba, will be replaced by Arena da Baixada; and stadium dos Eucaliptos, in Porto Alegre, will be replaced by Beira-Rio.

Above, a photo of the Sete de Setembro stadium  nowadays; it was in Sete de Setembro that United States beat England by 1 x 0.

The Americans would then go to Recife, where they lost to Chile by 5 x 2.  The English team played other two matches, both in Maracana. The Italians played only two matches, both in Pacaembu, São Paulo (the city outside Italy with the largest Italian community).

See details of all matches of the 1950 World Cup.

The official TAV site still informs (wth endorsement of the Federal Government) that operations should start before 2014; however, there are strong doubts about that. There are several obstacles to the project, including technical, financial, political and environmental.

In 2007, it was estimated that the bidding process would be finished by 2008, and the trains would be running after seven years; today, it is growing stronger the opinion that the train won’t be ready before 2015.

The Government is looking for private partners to build the railway. On December 7th 2009, the federal Government announced the criteria to be used to select the partners; 70% of the scoring of bidders will be related to the necessity of official fundings (the smaller the necessity, the higher the score), and 30% will be related to the price of ticket to be charged from passengers (the cheaper the ticket, the higher the score).

Below, more information about the project.

The map above shows the route of the railways (click the map to enlarge). Stations in red are already confirmed in the project, stations in green are still under analysis.

One line would connect Campinas (one the largest cities in the State of São Paulo) and the airport of Viracopos (international airport) to the city of São Paulo. The other line would connect São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, with intermediary stations in the airport of Guarulhos, São José dos Campos and Volta Redonda.

Trains will be 200 meters long. Estimated maximum speed is 300 km/h. Estimated travel times, leaving from Rio, are: to Volta Redonda, 34min; to São José dos Campos, 1h17min; to São Paulo, 1h33min; to Campinas, 2h08min. Currently, flying from São Paulo Rio takes about 1h50min, and driving takes about 5 hours.

There will be two categories of services: Express (between Campinas, São Paulo and Rio) and Regional (intermediary cities). Express trains would fit 458 people, in two classes; regional trains will fit 600 people, in one class.

Estimated prices for a ticket São Paulo – Rio are: R$ 150, economic class, off peak trips; R$ 200, economic class, peak time trips; R$ 250, executive class, off peak; R$ 325, executive class, peak time. Currently, a flight costs between R$ 180 (off peak) and R$ 400 (peak). Current exchange rate is US$ 1 = R$ 1.70.

About 61% of railways will run on surface, 21% across bridges and 18% underground.

Estimated costs total R$ 34.6 billion (about US$ 20 billion). Most of the costs correspond to civil woks; indemnifications will take 11%; systems and equipments will take 10%, and the trains themselves will take 8%.

Below, an image of Maracanã in 1950; as shown, the Brazilians attended matches in the stadium even before it was completely ready. Original capacity of Maracanã was 166,369, and current is 114,145.

Maracanã is a name of Indigenous origin. Maraca is a rustic musical instrument (basically, small stones in empty coconut shelves, which produce sounds when shaken) used by the indigenous. Maracanã means “sounds like maraca”, which was given by the Indigenous to a small river which runs across the area, from there to the neighbourhood, and from the neighbourhood to the stadium.

The official name of Maracanã is Mário Filho, a journalist who was very vocal in supporting the  building of the stadium.

Maracanazo is just one of the reasons why Maracanã will be the stage of the the final match of the 2014 World Cup; other cities – namely Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Belo Horizonte – are disputing the right to stage the opening match, but nobody in Brazil dares to consider a place other than Maracanã for the final.

Other reasons for the uncontested supremacy of Maracanã are: gathered the biggest crowd ever for a football match (nearly 200,000 people in the final of the 1950 Cup); gathered the largest audience for an artistic show (Paul McCartney, 1991, 184,368 people – not to be confused with the largest rock concert of all times, performed by the Rolling Stones in the nearby Copacabana beach to 2,000,000 people in 2006); historical performances by Frank Sinatra, Tina Turner, Madonna, Prince, the Stones; historical meetings called by Pope John Paul II; several of the most memorable matches of Brazilian football (including Pele’s 1000th goal).

Below, an image of Maracanã today. The arena is Maracanãzinho (little Maracanã), used for indoor sports. The swimming pool is Aquatic Park Julio Delamare, which used to be the most important venue for aquatic sports, but no longer  - a new complex called Maria Lenk replaced it (there are discussions about whether or not Julio Delamare should be demolished for the expansion of Maracanã).

The new Maracanã will have the capacity reduced to 90,000 people. Below, an artistic image of new Maracanã, produced by the architects hired by the government of Rio to prepare to project to be presented to FIFA.

Below, an image of the neighbourhood of new Maracanã. The stadium is situated in a populated area of Rio, and building the  infrastructure of access to and dispersion from the stadium will be a major challenge.

In the project below, catwalks (in orange) will be built linking the stadium to a large train station to be built; besides, the stretch of railway near the stadium will be roofed, and parking spaces will be built on those roofs.

Despite all challenges, it is certain that CBF, FIFA and Rio will do all they can to prepare Maracanã to justify the status of main temple of football in 2014.

Yesterday, Flamengo (the most popular team in the World, measured by number of fans) and Goias had a match; Flamengo had a chance to take the leadership of the Brazilian League 2009 (the match ended 0 x 0, Flamengo missed this chance, but is just one point behind leader Sao Paulo FC).

The match was in Maracanã, the largest stadium in Brazil, the largest football stadium in the World. The match was attended by (official numbers, lower than real numbers, as many people get in unregistered) 83,489 people.

This figure is far from the record attendance of nearly 200,000 people in the final of the 1950 World Cup; however, as security measures oblige stadium to decrease capacity, it is unlikely that any other stadium in the World will see such big crowd in the near future.

The biggest attraction of the match were not the players or the goals; it was the crowd. Flamengo is not only the biggest, but also the most passionate supporting crowd in Brazil. After several years (last time was in 1992), Flamengo has strong chances to become the Brazilian champion.

To mark the event, Flamengo’s fans created the largest human mosaic of all times. See below.

The human mosaic reads, against a background with the colors of Flamengo, the message: “A Maior Torcida do Mundo Faz a Diferença” (The Biggest Supporting Crowd in the World Makes the Difference).

Flamengo will play again in Maracanã on December 6th, against Grêmio (another ex-Brazilian and World champion), and the match may be deciding the Brazilian championship. Another big party is expected.