Amazon city is World Cup winner

The Amazonian jungle city of Manaus was the big winner at the World Cup draw.
Branded "the place ideally to avoid" by England coach Roy Hodgson earlier this week, the humid, steamy city far from the football hotspots of Brazil became the tournament's must-see venue.
Manaus got lucky beyond its dreams despite being awarded just four group-stage matches at the 44,000-capacity Arena Amazonia.
England vs Italy tops a 4-match World Cup bill on the opening Saturday, and Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal comes to play the United States on the second Sunday.
Two more European visitors must also trek northwards, for Croatia vs. Cameroon and Switzerland vs. Honduras.

"We won the World Cup today," Miguel Capobiango, World Cup coordinator for the Amazon state governor's office, told The Associated Press. "It's very, very good. I'm smiling." Some team coaches did not share his enthusiasm.

Switzerland coach Ottmar Hitzfeld is now rethinking his team's booking of a training camp more than 2,700 kilometers (1,680 miles) away near Sao Paulo, and his fellow German Volker Finke, the Cameroon coach, described the prospect of playing in Manaus as a "little bit of a problem."
Hodgson steered clear of strong opinions after previously igniting the Manaus mayor's anger.
"We would also prefer England doesn't come," Manaus mayor Arthur Virgilio said on the eve of the draw. "We hope to get a better team and a coach who is more sensible and polite."

Naturally, the draw fulfilled England's long-shot odds of opening the show for Manaus on June 14.
"He's one of the few people in the world who is not curious about the Amazon, who doesn't want to know Manaus," Mayor Virgilio said of Hodgson, who is one of the more urbane English football men.
As a keen reader, Hodgson probably already knows that English influence runs deep in the history of Manaus.
British businesses came to the Amazon for its rubber, invested in architecture copying the style from back home, and their workers left behind the football clubs they created more than 100 years ago.