World Cup 2014 in Brazil – Preview and Betting Odds
2014 World Cup in Brazil already in action
The 2010 World Cup may have just finished, but the hard work that’s involved in staging the 2014 edition in Brazil is underway, and has been for some time now. The next tournament will be spread out over 12 cities in the continent-sized country. These are: Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Cuiabá, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Manaus, Natal, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Salvador.
Some of the jobs that need to be completed include building and renovating stadiums so they’re up to World Cup standards as well as making sure the country’s 16 major airports will be ready and able to handle the thousands of fans who will be flocking into Brasil along with the officials and players. Hotel rooms will also have to be prepared or built, to make sure there are enough accommodations.
The 2014 World Cup will be the first one in Brazil since 1950 as well as the first one in South America since it was hosted by Argentina in 1978. It’s expected that about 600,000 international fans will make the trek and around three million Brazilians will attend the games and events which will cost approximately U.S. $18 billion to host. Three billion of that will be needed to expand and renovate airports.
However, things aren’t sailing along as smoothly as some had hoped as secretary general of FIFA Jerome Valcke has publicly expressed concern over the country’s lack of preparations so far and said he doesn’t see it changing anytime soon as the there is a presidential election in Brazil this year and then the carnival in Rio follows.
But Brazilian football federation president Ricardo Teixiera stated there haven’t been any problems even though Sao Paulo’s Morumbi Stadium doesn’t meet FIFA standards and plans to overhaul it haven’t been made. The country also has to decide what they can use the stadiums for after the World Cup is over.
As far as the teams themselves go, the fallout from South Africa didn’t take long to come into effect as several countries let their managers go, including Brazil, Argentina, Italy, and France. Of course anything can happen in the space of four years, and the qualifying stages are still even a couple of years away, but expect to see a lot of player changes in Brazil, Argentina, France, Italy, and England as it looks like some new, younger faces will be brought in, while Germany should be even better in four year’s time.
2014 World Cup Betting
A few bookmakers have released odds already on the 2014 tournament and this is the top 10 from Bodog Brazil 3/1, Spain 11/2, Argentina 11/2, Germany 10/1, Holland 12/1, England 16/1, Italy 16/1, France 22/1, Portugal 25/1, and Chile 40/1.
It might surprise a few people that Argentina, England, Italy, and France are in there as none of them really had a good World Cup this year, and Chile might be a bit of a surprise too.
At the bottom end of the list we see: Honduras 500/1, New Zealand 1000/1, Northern Ireland 1000/1, China 1000/1, Jamaica 1000/1, Wales 1000/1, North Korea 1500/1, and Canada at 1500/1.
There are also a couple of surprises here as New Zealand finished the recent World Cup as the only unbeaten team, with three draws, and other than getting hammered 7-0 by Portugal, North Korea wasn’t really that bad in South Africa. Need more tips on soccer betting?
Among other bookmakers offering odds on the 2014 World Cup we find William Hill (non-US) and the ever popular Sportsbook.com. Sportsbook offers 7 times the money on Spain to defend it’s trophy down in Brazil in four years time.