Postcards From Brazil: Ivi's World Cup Adventure

Ivi Casagrande is working at the
World Cup in her native Brazil

One of the newest Bowling Green State University women's soccer alumnae, Ivi Casagrande, is enjoying the experience of a lifetime this summer. Casagrande, who recently finished her senior year at BG, is back in her native country, helping with the world's largest sporting event. Casagrande, a native of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, is working with the 2014 FIFA World Cup. In the paragraphs below, she talks about her experiences with the Australian National Team and their travel party...

PHOTO GALLERY: Ivi Casagrande at the World Cup

June 8, 2014
The week of June 12th, 2014 has finally arrived. Tomorrow I will be leaving to Vitoria-ES to work for the Australian National Team for 15 days. I still can't believe the World Cup starts in 4 days. I have always loved the game of soccer, since I was 5 years old. I would never imagine that someday Brazil would host one of the biggest and most exciting events in the world. When Brazil was chosen to host the World Cup 7 years ago, the entire country was happy and excited. As the years went by, the Brazilians started to realize that hosting the World Cup in our country meant way more than just soccer. Our politics have a history of corruption throughout the entire country and a lot of money that was supposed to go towards the World Cup preparations went to the hands of politicians. At the Confederations Cup last year, the population decided to speak up and started a lot of protests around the country asking for better conditions of living and to also speak up about the corruption and all the money that was being spent on the World Cup and not on our priorities as a country such as education and health care. People overall started to get worried about the World Cup in 2014 and how they would deal with all the protests. I came back from Ohio on May 20 and was shocked with how <dfn><a href=

Ivi Casagrande at the World Cup" src="/common/controls/image_handler.aspx?thumb_id=15&image_path=/images/2014/6/16/IviWorldCup03.jpeg" />everyone was worried about the World Cup and how discouraged they were with everything that was about to happen in a few days. In my heart, different feelings happen at the same time. I am sad with the reality of the country, where politics worry too much about their money instead of trying to help our country to make improvements in critical areas such as education and health care. In the other hand, I have a strong passion for the game in my heart and can't wait for the World Cup to start and I know deep inside that besides all the disappointments with our government, the World Cup will be a success and will unite all the countries into one big nation.

June 9
I left my hometown, Belo Horizonte, early in the morning and got a flight to Vitoria. I arrived at the Sheraton Hotel, which is located in front of the beach and where the Cameroon National Team was staying for the World Cup. My responsibility was to take care of the family of the players from the Australian National Team. I would be their interpreter, help them in whatever they need and be responsible for all the logistics and tour schedules while they stay here for the World Cup. I had a meeting that day with the Football Federation Australia staff to go over everything that was planned for the family in the next 15 days. The next two days, June 10th and June 11th were the days the families would start arriving in Brazil so I was responsible to go to the airport every 2 hours to pick families up and take them to the hotel. I was excited and couldn't wait no longer for Thursday to come.

June 10
I woke up at 8 am, and worked out at the gym in the hotel which by the way had an incredible view of the beach. Then, I had breakfast and went straight to the airport to start picking up the families. Most of them had a long way from Australia, sometimes spending 36 hours to get here. However, we could see in their eyes how excited they were to be here. I went to the airport probably 7 times back and forth, picking up all the families and taking them to the Hotel. On the way from the airport to the hotel, we would talk about everything and they loved when I told them I played college soccer for BGSU and how awesome it was to leave Brazil to go somewhere with more opportunities, especially for Women's Soccer. The last arrival today was 11 pm, so I finally went to my room to rest so I could prepare for another long and exciting day of meeting the families of the players.

Check back to BGSUFalcons.com in the near future for more updates from Ivi!

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