Sao Paulo will host the opening match of the 2014 World Cup and Rio de Janeiro's Maracana Stadium will stage the final, FIFA announced Thursday. The host nation will kick off the tournament on June 12 at a 65,000-seat arena being built in the Itaquera neighborhood. The decision ended months of speculation over whether Brazil's biggest city would host the match following concerns over construction delays at the stadium. The Maracana Stadium will stage the final on July 13, as well as six other matches. Five-time champion Brazil can only play in its most famous stadium — built for the 1950 tournament — if it reaches the final. FIFA and Brazilian organizers teamed up to announce the 64-match tournament schedule, setting aside recent troubled relations to focus on football. All 12 host cities were promised to get at least four matches in a schedule that will maximize travel time for teams and expense for fans. Eight teams will travel to the isolated Amazon city of Manaus. In an apparent u-turn, FIFA said teams will move match-to-match around the vast country, as they did in South Africa in 2010. Officials had previously suggested they would learn from logistical issues in South Africa by basing four-team groups in one of four regional clusters. “You can have the best teams, the seeded teams, in all the host cities,” FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke said. Brazil will now be under increased pressure to upgrade airports which already shaped up as the country's biggest, and most expensive, challenge. Organizers believe the schedule is fairer to teams as they will each experience a range of conditions in the Southern Hemisphere winter — from the warm north of Brazil to the cool south, and humid inland cities compared to temperate coastal venues. FIFA broke with tradition by announcing four match slots, including a 10 P.M. (0100 GMT) kickoff, on the first Saturday of the 32-team group phase. All other group matches will start at three-hourly intervals between 1 P.M. and 7 P.M. (2200 GMT). All matches in the knockout rounds will kick off no later than 5 P.M. (2000 GMT). Blatter spoke briefly ahead of the fixture release, but avoided the many controversies swirling around FIFA, its scandal-hit executive committee and its prized asset, the World Cup from which it will earn more than $4 billion.
