The World Cup Begins

It has begun - the month long competition being held throughout Brazil.  Are they ready?  Many say no, but you can not stop a ball rolling once it gets going and oh has this tournament gotten going.  In so many different ways.  Below are parts of a news story on CBS News' website.  Let the challenges begin.  USA plays its' first match Monday.

SAO PAULO -- "Tudo bem" - all good - as the Brazilians like to say.

Well, almost.

With a nationwide wave of excitement but also wafts of tear gas, the country that sees itself as the artful soul of soccer but is deeply conflicted about spending billions of dollars on hosting its showcase tournament kicked off one of the most troubled World Cups ever. It started Thursday with the home team in an opening match in a stadium that was barely ready on time.

Even the football-loving Pope Francis got a touch of World Cup fever. He sent a video message on Brazilian television before the match, saying that the world's most popular sport can promote peace and solidarity by teaching the importance of working hard to reach goals, fair play and teamwork, and respect and honor for opponents.

But the party wasn't all fun-loving samba. In Sao Paulo, police fired canisters of tear gas and stun grenades to push back more than 300 demonstrators who gathered along a main highway leading to the stadium.

The demonstrations in recent months have paled in comparison those last year, when a million people took to the streets on a single night airing laments including the sorry state of Brazil's public services despite the heavy tax burden its citizens endure. Those protests were largely spontaneous and no single group organized them.

That's now changed, said David Fleischer, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia. He said the recent protests have shrunk, because they are "very specific in their aims, so they are quite easy for the police to control."