Brazil: Samba Dancers Going All-Inclusive

DW-WORLD.DE: What are the Brazilian fans going to be like?

Martin Curi Spörl: The Brazilian fans have a good reputation --as samba dancers. Completely different from the British, for example. I think that the Brazilian fans like to get dressed up. And there will be the so-called symbolic fans. Maybe you can remember the Colombian condor at the 1990 World Cup? Brazil has fans like this as well. They get all dressed up in really exotic outfits and then sponsors pay for them to come.

How many "samba dancers" do you think will come?

In Brazil, people were only able to purchase all-inclusive packages, with flights, hotel and tickets. There were 6,500 packages sold, the cheapest one for 3,500 euros ($4,243). If you consider that a month’s wages is an average of 100 euros ($121), it is easy to see that the package were too expensive for the average Brazilian. So, most of the people coming from Brazil will be very rich. Of course, there are about 180 million soccer fans in the country, and all of them would like to come, but luckily there is a television set in every bar in Brazil. A few may come without tickets, just for the fun of it.

Will Brazil take the World Cup home?

Brazil is the favorite team at the moment. But that is often Brazil’s problem: every time they were pushed prior to the tournament, they ended up losing. That happened in 1950 and in 1982, and in 1998 -- they even thought they would come out champions. And then they lost the Cup to France.

Who do you support at home?

The red-white-green team from the soccer club Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro.