Keep Calm And Kick the Ball!

HarryJ was very present in the making of this blip! He's a football fan par excellence with The Vancouver Whitecaps, Liverpool and The Old Firm all, I think, featuring in his passions! And he's also strongly into all things Brazilian, after his time here!

So, here's the latest (clockwise from top left) from your Chief Football Correspondent in Brazil..the Beira-Rio Stadium which will be used in the World Cup opened on Sunday more or less successfully with praise being given to its food stalls but the 3G service being roundly condemned (shouldn't Bovril always come first?); the State of Rio (Carioca) Championship is hotting up with Botafogo (one of the great Rio de Janeiro city teams) attempting a surge from mid-table to pull back ground on their trio of traditional rivals Flamengo, Fluminense and Vasco de Gama, all fighting it out at the top of the league; Ricky Martin is compiling the official FIFA World Cup CD by running a virtual global competition to identify the tracks to include, with the lead song 'Vida' composed by a young Puerto Rican already selected (and may Martin's selection as the star lend weight to the anti-homophobia campaign in the British game); an heroic but unsung British citizen, Andy Smith, is cycling 8.851kms between all 12 Brazilian World Cup stadia prior to the World Cup itself in order to raise money for charity (see his website in the text in shot above), and he was at the iconic Maracana Stadium yesterday and hopes to be in Manaus in the middle of the Amazon for the England-Italy match! Oh, and finally, there's a report on The Guardian's recent feature complaining and raising doubts about the whole readiness of the country and wisdom of having the World Cup here in the first place....to which I say, given the advanced stage we find ourselves in, 'Keep Calm and Kick the Ball!'