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The hotel was supposed to have been finished for the  World Cup; a Brazil flag hanging from one of the cranes looks appropriately damp and limp. But life goes on, and at the cafe around the corner that has become a favourite breakfast haunt, the talk is of how Brazilians will be loudly backing Holland. If there’s one thing that haunts Paulistas, who were in general far more realistic than the media about the limitations of their side, more than not making the final, it is the idea of Argentina winning it in the Maracan?. Back to Rio on my ninth internal flight of the tournament and not a hitch yet.

It can’t help but feel criminal that this World Cup will pass by without the hosts playing in the newly rebuilt Maracan. Just one more oddity at a World Cup that sometimes seems to have been a roaring success in spite of those who organised it. The Argentinians are surprisingly low key at first, but it soon becomes clear that their signature song to the tune of Bad Moon Rising will be the sound track to the next few days. Despite the driving rain, they keep it up on a gridlocked beachfront in Copacabana, in the bars of Lapa and at the Sambadrome that has been turned into a giant camper-van park.

Their takeover of one of Rio’s sacred sites seems symbolic. the hosts of the next World Cup, Russia 2018 have had a high-profile presence in Rio throughout this World Cup. At a lavish function in the art deco Copacabana Palace hotel where most of the Fifa top brass are staying, the Russian sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, on Friday night hosted Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini and others over caprioskas and canapés. It is impossible not to marvel at the contrast between the airless opulence of the bloated bubble inhabited by Fifa and its hangers-on and the vibrance of the fans  walking past the heavily guarded gates.