I am a second sting player for Brazil’s world cup team. If anyone gets hurt or becomes ill I will have a chance to play, not that I would wish that upon a teammate though. I personally am extremely excited about this opportunity to travel, and this will be my first time leaving the continent. I am not very familiar with past ethnic struggles in the hosting country South Africa, but after some research I will do my best to explain. A main struggle that the people of South Africa endured was the conflict over state boundaries laid down during colonization. Some agreed with the new boundaries, but others wanted to keep the tribal boundaries that were already in place. We will be arriving in South Africa very soon, and I am expecting to see many struggling people. According to a survey conducted by the United Nations South Africa was ranked second for most murders and first for assault and rape, I will definitely be watching my back. Another problem that South Africa faces is that there is too large of a difference between the lower and middle classes. The two barely interact; the middle class usually lives in gated communities to escape the poor lower class. There are some positive ethnic relations in the country as well mostly caused by the huge jump in technology South Africa has experienced in the last few years.

We, the Brazilian football team have been in South Africa for a while already. we have been practicing in Johannesburg ever since we flew in on May 27. the first thing we did when we got there was a physical conditioning thing and the next day we got right into practicing because we don't mess around. Head coach Dunga says this will not be like 2006 when we were eliminated in the quarter-finals so we're switching things up a little. According to him we are not going to be as open to the public this time around, that means no public practices and fewer interviews with us, the players. The hotel that we have been set up in is quite nice, its called the Fairway hotel, apparently its five star. I assume its called the Fairway hotel because its in the middle of a golf course. we don't practice there though, we have to go to a local school. Back home in Brazil we dont have to live together which is nice. We all make quite a bit of money and we also have our own field to practice on, some of us don't even live in Brazil, Ronaldinho, for example. He got picked up by Barcelona and splits his time between Brazil and Europe. we don't really care about the accommodations though, we just came here to play the game, and win.

I am a football player for Brazil's team. In Brazil, we take football very seriously. Our country sees us as the best part of their country. They feel as if our team has a success then the country will have a success as well. But if we fail they feel as if the entire country has failed. We are highly respected all throughout Brazil, but we don’t get the royal treatment as you may think. We are just like normal people every day, but when football season begins, we are completely different than anyone else. Our main goal is not only to succeed, but to succeed without any mistakes, and nothing less than that. When we reach South Africa I expect to see a decent football field in a stadium filled with seats. I don’t expect to see buildings everywhere or great construction because Africa is very poor. They won’t have very many of the luxuries we have here so it will be very different than our lives here in Brazil. If our team were to win, back home wouldn’t be very different. We have won so many times that when we get home we get about a week to a month of people congratulating us. We get on television and we talk about how it went and how we lead the team to success. But if we lose then we are excluded from everyone’s hearts. We aren’t respected because everyone in Brazil believes that we have failed the entire country.

Brazil’s team is one of the best soccer teams in the world. The team is a five-time world champion and has qualified in every world cup. The Brazilian team holds some very famous players like the goalie Julio Cesar, Kaka, and Luis Fabiano as forward. Carlos Caetano Bledorn Verri, also known as coach Dunga, has led his team to many victories. He began coaching Brazil in August, 2006 and has been doing very good at keeping the team in every single World cup. Brazil is preparing for its 19th consecutive World Cup finals. It is one of the only countries that have made it to every addition of the FIFA World Cup. Out of the 19 FIFA World Cup tournaments, Brazil has won 5. The team also made it to the finals twice. Out of 92 games played, Brazil won 64 of them, and tied 14 games. Brazil’s team is ranked first by FIFA and is one of the best teams in the world. Brazil will be the host country for the 2014 World Cup, automatically qualifying them a spot in the 2014 World cup. Brazil won the World Cup in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, and 2002. Football is a very popular sport in Brazil and each player is highly honored to be on the Brazil’s team. Most kids worship these players and practice soccer as much as they can to join the team. The country is very proud of their team and all of the successful games they have had.