Inadequate infrastructure, particularly in air transport, threatens soccer-mad Brazil's hopes of dazzling the world with the best-organized World Cup ever 12 months from now.

Expectations are high. It will be the first World Cup hosted by the South American powerhouse since 1950, when the country's defeat to Uruguay in the final at Rio's iconic Maracana stadium is still considered a traumatic national humiliation.

Brazilians may not have invented soccer but they have elevated it to an art.