The World Cup is just 51 days away and excitement is building. Each week our man in Brazil, Joe Callaghan, brings us the latest news and views from South America - as well as traveller tips for those heading out there - and provides a flavour of exactly how the World Cup in Brazil is shaping up.
 
They've undoubtedly got a lot more pressing matters on their plate right now, but the Brazilian army have a month to find a third lion and make Roy Hodgson and the boys feel really at home this summer.

Sportsmail enjoyed an exclusive tour of England's World Cup training base in Rio de Janeiro this week and among the many omens, oddities and inadvertent nods to their upcoming tenants, the two hefty white lion statues who sit guarding the football pitch at the Fortaleza de Sao Joao immediately grabbed the eye.

A fully functioning military fort might not immediately seem like the most logical base for a national football team but where better for England to plot the most unlikely assault on the 31 other competing nations than the fortress which was the foundation stone for the very city of Rio de Janeiro in the 1560s?

 
Home: Images of England's World Cup training base in Rio for the World Cup taking place this summer

Getting a World Cup base just right is no simple task. But it is a vital one and one that England have got badly wrong in the recent past, never more so than in Germany in 2006 when Sven Goran Eriksson's decision to decamp the WAGs circus to the same quaint spa retreat as the team ensured things went from Baden-Baden to worsen-worsen from the get-go.

The wives and girlfriends will be in Rio this summer too but they will blend in a hell of a lot easier on the beaches and in the boutiques of such a huge city. And England's training base really is the definition of seclusion.

The armed soldiers at the gate give you the first clue that interruptions will be few and far between here. While the Atlantic waters lap at the fort's shores and the Sugar Loaf mountain hangs overhead and gives the training pitch one of the most spectacular backdrops imaginable, claims that England could be spied upon from the top of the tourist attraction are more than a little fanciful.

If Hodgson and his generals are going to worry about onlookers all the way up there then maybe they should try and re-route the never-ending stream of planes that roar overhead coming in to the city's nearby domestic airport too.

On the run: England's World Cup training base comes equipped with this bright blue running track

Beach life: England's World Cup training base is located near one of Rio's many colourful beaches

As we circled the new playing surface that has been installed specifically for England just this month, an army team went through their paces around the running track and seemed to be perfectly capable of zoning out the many noise distractions - a giant new gymnasium is being built about 50 metres from the pitch too. The team, incidentally, just happened to be decked out in Italian blue and white. Omens. And more of them.
Stout defence will be key to any English advance to the knock-out stages and Fortaleza de São João has its own with the three giant canons that point out to sea near the football field all being imported from England in the 1780s.

Hodgson has briefly had his England squad here before. They spent time here last June and our guide, Sgt Albuquerque, remembered Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard and Co being incredibly relaxed in the surrounds.

They almost snatched the most unlikely of victories at the Maracanã a year ago after four days on this base. But that was just a phoney war with toy soldiers. The real battle is now just around the corner. The two lions are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the three.

 
Will fit right in: Alex Gerrard and Coleen Rooney will be right at home on Rio's beaches, should they travel

Stadium deadline gets ever closer

We're mere hours away from being 50 days out from the World Cup but as the clock rapidly ticks down, Jerome Valcke's airmiles keep ratcheting up. The FIFA Secretary General is back in Brazil today for yet another whistle-stop tour of the three stadiums that you still need a hard hat to get into.

The most pressing venue remains São Paulo, host stadium for the opening ceremony on June 12, and unlikely to be ready before mid-to-late May, ensuring restless sleep for Valcke and FIFA right up to the tournament kick-off. Curitiba and Cuiaba are also on the agenda this week but while there's a general acceptance that all 12 stadiums will be fine and dandy on the day, it is the transport infrastructure that should worry fans and organisers alike.

It's a good thing Valcke wasn't jetting in last Friday night when this correspondent sat in a pitch dark Galeao International Airport in Rio de Janeiro for over 30 minutes. It was the sixth blackout to hit the airport this year. So maybe pack a head-torch as well as a hard hat, just in case.

No deal: Former West Brom Nicolas Anelka had been expected to join Atletico Mineiro but won't be moving

Good week: Fred and Fluminese

The 2014 Brazilian Championship kicked off this past weekend with as much legal action as on-field fare.

The relegation furore from last season - powerhouse Fluminense were saved the ignominy of dropping down a division when the much less fashionable Portuguesa were deducted points for an ineligible player and instead fell through the trapdoor - still runs on in the country's courts.

But Flu' and captain Fred didn't let the lawsuits distract them as they hammered Figueirense 3-0 at the Maracana to jump to the top of the first league table of the season.

Figueirense, by the way, are the subject of a second legal wrangle over whether they should have been promoted to the top flight at all after they too used an ineligible player. Confused? Join the party.

Bad week: These guys

So Nicolas Anelka never showed up in Belo Horizonte to sign on the dotted line with Atletico Mineiro.

The dream of Le Sulk and Ronaldinho linking up is over before it began. The Copa Libertadores champions are unlikely to suffer for not having Anelka around. These two fans, however, (subs: pictured below/above) deserve all the suffering their fellow Galo diehards can inflict on them.

Error: Two Atletico Mineiro fans who got ahead of themselves in thinking Nicolas Anelka's signing was confirmed

Remember me: Juan Roman Riquelme (Boca Juniors)

He spent much of the middle part of the last decade being linked with a move to the Premier League but it never came to pass.

Juan Roman Riquelme has had some influence on English football though. There's a good chance Manuel Pellegrini wouldn't have got where he has without Riquelme's magic in the Villarreal years that helped the Chilean manager attract the eyes of Europe's elite.

Riquelme, now 35 and still specialising in the sublime, insists he is in his final season back home with his beloved Boca Juniors,but injury-time winners like this one at the weekend leave a lot of people hoping he'll hang around a little longer.

Quote of the week: ‘No, I don't think I will watch... I have plans to go Disneyland with my wife and children instead.'

Carlos Tevez, who hasn't played international football in three years and is not in Alejandro Sabella's plans for the summer, is not losing a whole pile of sleep over it.

Indifferent: Juventus and former Argentina striker Carlos Tevez (centre) doesn't expect to watch the World Cup

Travellers tip: Know your strength

Now that Lent is over for another year, it's back to guilt-free drinking for people of every creed. When it comes to a solid drink, Brazil excels with caipirinhas, a cocktail for every occasion.

But be aware that no two caipirinhas are ever the same. The amount of cachaca thrown in can swing wildly from one drink to the next.

So just because you've had two mild ones in a particular bar doesn't mean that a third won't knock ya into the middle of next week. Watching your team on the world stage can test the senses enough, doing it with a wicked caipirinha hangover is not recommended.

Amazon forecast: How’s the weather up in Manaus?

It's hot but not hot enough to stop the recon work as the FBI spent the week scoping out the Amazonian capital with rumours that Joe Biden will attend the US's clash with Portugal there. Can we assume MI5 have already done their homework too should any royals be brave enough to look on when England meet Italy?