The 2014 World Cup will cost a staggering minimum of 10 billion US dollars for Brazil to organise, the majority of which will be borne by the public sector.

It has been a long time since Brazil hosted a major tournament, and a lot of the stadiums require work, including of course the legendary Maracana, which was built for the last World Cup that Brazil hosted, 53 years ago.

The tournament is expected to be held across 18 cities, and so the money spent on World Cup development will greatly improvement infrastructure all over the country (hence the decision to make it a largely public sector undertaking).

The outcome of the tournament will be interesting, since it was only after hosting their last World Cup that Brazilians went football crazy, and the tournament will return now to the country which produces some of the sport's finest moments and people, both on the field, and off it. 

When Sven Goran Eriksson's Manchester City announced that they would be signing the Brazilian Elano, most thought of him as being a gamble - an undoubtedly talented player, but one who would be expected to struggle, and take time to adapt to the Premiership (as many Latin Americans do). His dalliances with injuries, and slightish frame were also factors for doubters, as was the fact that he was basically untested at the top level apart from some apperances for the Brazilian national team.

Well, the outcome so far has been quite spectacular. Right from the start of the season, Elano has been the focal point of City's attacking play, and a big part of everything good that they're doing. He was instrumental in setting up their first goal of the season, and currently leads the Premier League's assist charts with 5 assists (tied with Cesc Fabregas). He's also scored 3 goals, and as a result, Man City have been flying - they're currently third in the league, 3 points behind leaders Arsenal, and just 1 behind bitter rival Man United (but with a game in hand).

Elano's story is an interesting one. Born in Iracemápolis, São Paulo, he joined Santos, and was an instrumental part of their title winning sides, although very much an unfeted player. Whilst Robinho, Diego, Ricardinho and Alex stole the limelight, Elano went about doing his work efficiently, achieving a reputation as a talented goalscoring midfielder with 32 goals in 3 years. Whilst his more "illustrious" teammates took off to Real Madrid and Porto, Elano saw a good opportunity to further his career at Shakhtar Donetsk, one of the many newly-rich clubs in Eastern Europe, that played in the Champions League, and where he wouldn't be too homesick with a host of other Brazilians around him. Although he struggled at first, he worked his way into the team, and became the first Ukraine-based player to be called up to the Brazil national squad when Dunga took charge. Elano started off very brightly, scoring against Argentina at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium. He has since been a fixture in the Brazil squad, although not always in the first XI.

Elano's excellence as a player has a lot to do with his versatility and intelligence, as well as his willingness to work hard. While he is not Gennaro Gattuso (thankfully), he doesn't shirk his share of the work, and is more than happy to put in tackles, and stand up to them as well. Most Man City/Premiership fans might only have seen him operating on the right or in a free role, but I had the chance to watch him train and play up-close at this year's Copa America, and he's perfectly capable of playing on the left, in the middle or in a wing-back or full-back role. Had Maicon not managed to recover from a shoulder injury at the Copa, then it's very likely that Elano would have deputised. And nevermind his passing, movement. intelligence and workrate, he is also a very, very good finisher. In training, he would slot the ball crisply past the keeper almost 9 times out of 10, producing exactly the kind of finish that the situation demanded. Man City have signed the "complete" attacking midfielder.

No one should get too carried away though - the English winter still awaits (although Elano is more than well prepared for this after his sojourn in the Ukraine), but there is also the surprise factor that is still working in his favour; once opponents get to know him better, they will start to target him, and people like Robbie Savage, Lee Bowyer, and Frank Lampard are more than happy to "strategically" kick lumps out of certain key players.

Elano is lucky to have a manager of Sven's intelligence. One of the reasons that the team has gelled well, and that the new recruits have settled in almost immediately, is that Sven knows how to arrange teams to maximise their strengths, and minimise their weaknesses. He's well educated with the English game, and the first thing he did was to pair Michael Johnson and Dietmarr Hamann together in central midfield. Both of them are fighters, good defensive midfielders, and organisers and passers. When there's a fight to be had in the middle of the park, they take care of it, and when going forward, they keep it simple and basically give Elano a platform on which to showcase his talent, which he has done in abundance.

A strange old match. Brazil's midfield and attack boasted some of the world's most talented youngsters, the Polish side had some decent players, but were mostly a fit, organised bunch. An early goal, a quick sending-off and then dogged determination saw the Polish under-20 team upset Brazil.

Alexandre Pato of Internacional is probably the biggest star of this tournament, and he took the attack to Poland in the opening minutes. However the Poles, even though they weren't anywhere near as skillful, played intelligently, and looked to counter at every opportunity. No chances of note were created, and then in the 23rd minute, Krychowiak put Poland ahead from a free-kick. It was a decent strike, but not very powerful, and i'm of the opinion that the Brazilian 'keeper could have done much, much better.

The elation of taking the lead was then brutally ended when Polish midfielder Krol was sent off. It was a hard tackle, and definitely deserving of a yellow, but somehow the young Pole received a red from Premiership ref Howard Webb. There's no disputing that it was a foul, but both teams got away with the same thing throughout the match, with only yellows or free-kicks being issued. Harsh decision, and it really put Poland at a disadvantage. I'm not sure if Krol maybe swore or said something to the referee, but I couldn't see that.

Brazillian fans might say that on balance of play they deserved to win, because they attacked the most, had the most possession and dominated the game, but they did so against 10 men and never managed to look like scoring. They would probably have dominated against 11 men as well, so the Polish team had to show incredible, incredible bravery and determination to come away with the victory. Time and time again there would be last-ditch tackles, headers and blocks to deny the Brazilians, who despite all their trickiness and skill were less-than-effective, most often passing too narrowly and intricately and allowing the play to breakdown. In fact, Poland 'keeper Bartowski only had 2 or 3 real saves to make... the best of them being from a dribble and shot from Jo.

The Brazilian players really didn't show up either. Much of the focus had been on £18 million Chelsea-target Alexandre Pato, the Internacional attacker and current golden boy of Brazilian football, but he was missing his renowned composure. Manchester United and Arsenal target, Renato Augusto from Flamengo, was flickering but ineffective, and CSKA Moscow's Jo (prolific last year until injury) was threatening but lacked support. It was another talented midfielder, Leandro Lima, who was the most impressive Brazilian on show today, constantly tricking his way past defenders and trying to make things happen.

With 12 shots to Poland's 2, the Brazilians were clearly missing any kind of end product, and they will look to fix this in the next game.

Oh, and the pronunciation from the Canadian commentators is awful.