The tournament is just six days away but the Brazilian city at the centre of it all remains strangely subdued ahead of the biggest football event on the planet

The Copcabana Fan Fest is under construction on the beach. It will welcome fans in six days' time. At the moment, it is a building site.

On one side, workers recklessly hang from scaffolding on the spot where the giant screen will display the action. On the other, numerous men in hard hats drill, saw and solder against the clock to have everything in position for the influx of tourists and locals expected to watch matches from the fan zone.

At the Maracana, a huge perimeter fence has been erected. Work continues inside, readying the media zone, the ticket entrances and maintaining the walkways. Aside from a few opportunistic street performers, such as the man juggling four footballs at once in the middle of traffic, the general feeling is underwhelming.

Under Construction | Workers toil feverishly to ensure the Fan Fest on Copacabana beach is ready

Like many other elements of the Brazil World Cup, it will be a race against time to get everything in position. Some stadiums such as Cuaiba and Porto Alegre are still touch-and-go, with Fifa seemingly ready to renege on certain test protocols to ensure that its venues are fit for purpose.

The media are doing their level best to generate anticipation. TV channels show football, minute-to-minute. Neymar is omnipresent. Brazil take to the field against Croatia on June 12 but the city of Rio de Janeiro, just like the fan park, doesn't seem ready - at least, not yet.

Street traders attempt to flog World Cup memorabilia to tourists, while the workers at the Christ the Redeemer statue wear replica Brazil shirts. The areas around Rio's famous beaches have the occasional flags and special offers to entice us into the restaurants and shops.

Yet, elsewhere, you wouldn't know how close this event really is. Most football fans are yet to arrive here and the majority of locals are still nonchalantly going about their daily lives. It is, of course, winter and there's work to be done. Jobs to which to go.

There is still the sense that Brazilians remain divided about the tournament, just as they was a year ago during turbulent protests surrounding the Confederations Cup. While Brazilians are proud of their country and culture, the World Cup is considered by many as an expensive extravagance that has supplanted the need for better healthcare and education.

A nation that should be embracing the homecoming of its national obsession instead is displaying ambivalence. Instead of the all-out celebration, the beginning of the bid to obliterate the memory of the Maracanazo and defeat to Uruguay in this very city in 1950, it seems that the political undertones have left some weary. One waiter to whom I speak insists that he hopes Argentina, not Brazil, win the tournament.

While the demonstrations of 12 months ago haven't been seen in Rio yet, workers taking part in a subway strike in Sao Paulo on Friday morning were subjected to a barrage of tear gas from local police. The knock-on effect delayed Fifa delegates and even the Brazil national side ahead of today's friendly against Serbia. The ill will towards this event from some quarters very much remains. Whether the people of Rio follow suit is a genuine concern.

The hope - the belief - is that this is only temporary and that, if Neymar fires Brazil out of the blocks with style, as he did at the Confederations Cup, there will be an acceptance that what's done is done. In that scenario, the goodwill towards the success of the Selecao may lighten the mood and bring out the World Cup everyone longs to see.

But the road to Rio has been damaging and draining and, at the moment, it isn't so easy to forget the sacrifices made along the way.