Is Brazil ready for its close-up?

• Author: Smith, Patricia

Next month's World Cup was supposed to showcase Brazil as a rising nation. But things haven't gone as planned.

The Maracana, situated in the heart of Rio de Janeiro, is Brazil's largest stadium and the temple of the country's unofficial religion: soccer. In preparation for the World Cup, which begins next month, it's undergone a gleaming $536 million renovation that has made it one of the most modern sports facilities in the world.

A few miles away, on the outskirts of Rio, lies the other Brazil: crowded, crime-infested slums known as favelas. In the lead-up to the tournament, thousands of soldiers have invaded the slums to wrest control from violent gangs and drug lords before hundreds of thousands of soccer fans from all over the world descend on Brazil next month.

The World Cup, which takes place every four years, brings together the best teams from 32 countries--including the United States this year--to compete for the world championship.

For Brazil, one of South America's success stories, hosting the planet's most-watched sporting event is a big deal and marks the nation's debut on the world stage. The country has spent $11 billion renovating and building stadiums and improving facilities in the 12 cities that will host games.

But despite the record spending, sports officials are worried that Brazil may not be ready for its close-up. According to FIFA, soccer's international governing body, crime remains rampant in cities where the tournament will take place and several of Brazil's new stadiums still aren't completed. In the rush to finish the construction projects, several workers have died in accidents. Many of the promised infrastructure projects, like transit systems and airport upgrades, have been delayed or canceled altogether.

"We are not ready," Jerome Valcke, FIFA's secretary general, recently told reporters.

None of this bodes well for 2016, when Brazil is set to become the first South American nation to host the Olympics.

The New Brazil

When FIFA awarded Brazil this year's World Cup in 2007, the country considered it a huge honor. Hosting the marquee event was supposed to showcase the new Brazil, a nation of more than 200 million people that now boasts the world's seventh-largest economy. Instead, the unfinished projects and dangerous slums may highlight how Brazil has failed to live up to its promises--and its potential.

And Brazil does indeed have enormous potential. It has a diversified industrial base and a booming agricultural sector that has made it the world's top exporter of sugar, coffee, chicken meat, and fruit juice. In the last decade, more than 40 million Brazilians have been pulled out of poverty. Unemployment is at near-record lows. Extreme poverty, says the government, has been reduced by 89 percent.

"What is most striking to a visitor is how many middle-class citizens there seem to be," says New York Times columnist Joe Nocera about a recent trip to Rio. "Cars were everywhere; traffic jams, I've come to believe, are a sign of a growing middle class. It means people have enough money to buy automobiles."

These gains are no accident. Brazil's government has worked to improve living conditions and get people out of poverty. It has raised its minimum wage three times in the past three years, and a program called Bolsa Familia ("the family purse") has essentially handed money to mothers living in poverty. In return, they have to keep their children in school and use health-care services.

Crime & Poverty

But major challenges remain, and they're jeopardizing Brazil's coming-out party. Poverty is still...