World cup team logistics. Flights and heat in Brazil part 2 and final.

The first part of this blog post, was about the Soccerroo’s choice for a base camp in Brazil and how that did not have a negative effect in the team’s performance, something that can be suggested though for Spain.  

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Greece participated in a football World Cup for the third time in its history. This time, people responsible for organizing the team’s logistics were more professional and prepared than they were back in 1994 in USA when Greece first participated in a world cup. For the base camp, the coach and his associates picked Aracaju the capital of Sergipe.  This was the second most northern base camp of all participating teams. Only Ghana chose to stay at a city further north, in Maceio. Aracaju a seaside Brazilian city, is known as the city with the healthiest lifestyle in the country and a national example for its bike paths. During the world cup, it was hot and very humid.

Greece played the first match against Colombia in Belo Horizonte which was quite cool compared to other Brazilian cities of the same latitude. The 852 metres elevation of Belo Horizonte keeps the city cool, suppressing high maximum air temperatures experienced in nearby cities at lower altitudes.  Colombia, not only had a great team but they are also quite accustomed to the Tierra caliente climate. Greece traveled 1243 kms (as the crow flies) to go from Aracaju to Belo Horizonte while Colombia travelled only 755 kms from their base camp in Sao Paulo. 

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Japan, that was on the same group, chose to stay in Sao Paulo, where the climate is much cooler and there is also a big Japanese community. In their second game against Greece they had to travel 2322 Kms to Natal while Greece had to travel just 605 Kms. The climate in Natal is quite warm at humid during June and July and while Greece was playing with 10 players for more than half the game, they seemed more energetic and managed to get a valuable 0-0 draw that proved to be critical for Greece to advance to the next round.   

Ivory Coast was the fourth team in the group and they chose to stay in Sao Paulo as well. That meant that along with Japan they traveled the most kms between their camp and the host cities for the group matches. Ivory Coast traveled 6670 Kms and Japan 7172 kms. That is more than twice the distance that Greece (3152 kms) or Colombia (3338 kms) had to travel. The last and crucial match for Ivory Coast against Greece was played in Fortaleza at 17:00 local time. Greece traveled 816 Kms from Aracaju while Ivory Coast traveled almost three times more (2370). While the African players were considered superior in strength and speed, Greece managed to be competitive all the way till the last minute and scored the winning goal that allowed them to go through to the stage of 16.

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My conclusion for this group was that team logistics played some role here too. Greece benefited from their base camp choice while Japan and Ivory Coast did not, in fact they probably were hindered. 

Other notable failures in this world cup were Italy and the USA team. USA traveled the most kms of all 32 teams (8886) while Italy was close with 8458 kms. 

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While I was never a fan of the German team, it’s only fair to close this blog post with their accomplishment in this last Mundial. They were the most prepared and organized team in this competition, not only from an athletic point of view but also for the team logistics. They picked a relatively north location in Bahia and arranged for a fit for purpose, newly built just for them, base camp. Campo Bahia  a new resort constructed at an area with a climate similar to those where the team’s matches were played, included 14 two-storey housing units, a training pitch, team headquarters, and a fitness center. It has been reported that a German investor has helped to fund the £25 million project. Germany was one of the top five teams with the less kms traveled (fourth with just 2114) at the Group stage. Interestingly Argentina that also made it to the World Cup final was third with just 2086 kms.

World cup in Brazil. Stadiums instead of public transport.

I am a huge fan of football or soccer as it is called in the English speaking world. Unfortunately Brazil is a long way from Brisbane and as much as I would love to be able to watch Greece or Australia play at the world cup, unfortunately I had to watch the games on TV.

The Mundial as I've learned to know the world cup from my youth, as all huge sport competitions has also a transport and traffic side. As in the London Olympic games in 2012, the organizers have to plan an effective way to move tens of thousands of people to and from the venues safely. The big difference of the world cup from the Olympic games, is that the world cup is hosted across a whole country and there is only one game at a time while the Olympic games are hosted around a city (and a bit further out) with lots of different games and sports happening at the same time. The Olympic games are much bigger competition from a transport and traffic point of view but the transport task of the Mundial is quite significant as well.

Brazil promised FIFA and the Brazilian people a series of upgrades on it's infrastructure. And while FIFA, which is accused for corruption cared more about the new stadiums like the new Sao Paolo arena, the carrot for most Brazilians was the upgrades to transport infrastructure. A series of transport projects like upgrades to airports and new light rail systems were planned to be delivered supposedly just before the first whistle of the referee in the game of Brazil against Croatia.

In reality Brazil ended up spending a huge amount of money and failed to deliver a lot of the transport infrastructure upgrades that it promised. The light rail in Cuiaba where Australia played the first game against Chile, was meant to help soccer fans get around but was not ready in time. Instead, the new light rail line from the airport into the city runs for just 500 metres until it disappears completely.

source: The Associated Press

And there are a lot of other traffic and transport related issues that add to Brazilians' disappointment and frustration.

Traffic congestion and gridlocks around stadiums is a regular phenomenon and that caused a number of fans to miss the opening minutes of matches. Even the second best football player of all times, missed the first half of the opening game between Brazil and Croatia, held up in traffic.

Fans in Brazil, also experience big delays at airports, as the network capacity can not cope with all the demand and a lot of the airport upgrades were not delivered in time. And then there are those unlucky fans that were delayed in air traffic just because elected politicians want to demonstrate their country's superiority through sports.

All these traffic problems, along with massive hikes in public transport fares and extreme poverty led to protests, especially on the transport sector and clashes with the police.

Next time we take a break at the game's half-time, let us take a moment and ask a simple question like the kid on the photograph. If people don't even benefit from the infrastructure upgrades of such sport events, then what's really left?