Exellent report Paul, who are you supporting out there? USA or Belgium?

You should be reporting for ITV or the Beeb, you would do a much better job.

Great report Paul, thanks for posting. Hope you have a great time time for the rest of your trip. Do another one soon.

Please Paul keep em' coming.

Excellent stuff Paul, thanks very much! I can usually tell within minutes if I am going to like a particular article from someone that has written about their experience............simple really, if I can sense what it feels like to be there, then it has me, so to speak, partly no doubt to following Everton all over the place many years ago!

Keep them coming indeed mate & I hope the both of you continue to have a superb time!!

Thanks Paul - so different from my experience in Japan in 2002. Firstly I watched England win their opener against Argentina. No Everton players in the squad and all the locals were supporting David Beckham (and by extension England). The Japanese were terrified of England fans - they were force fed a diet of videos of England fans destroying towns in Spain and France. It was weird walking around and having complete strangers obviously afraid of you (getting out of lifts if you get in, crossing the road to avoid you etc). Needless to say there was no trouble in Japan.

Japan was great (the team won as well) but Brazil sounds more fun!

Beautiful reflection on your obviously joyful time in Brazil. Hope you enjoy the rest of your stay, and hopefully you will share with us more highlights.

Sounds like a good trip; great report... atmosphere so much better at non-England games in my opinion. I went to Ukraine to see England v Ukraine and there are always a minority that have to spoil it.

Glad to hear that the locals are friendly. So much press about the dangers of Brazil. I read somewhere that its safer in the favellas than the the more affluent parts of the city?

Enjoy rest of the trip.

One silver lining to our demise is no shop window for Barkley and Jags and Baines pick up no injuries. I too am blue before the St George's cross!

Your usual elegant touch, Paul. Delighted you're having so much fun. I'm red-white-and-and-blue with envy. Thanks for sharing.

Great to see USA go through. On the same day rat man is out of the derby. Good times.

An eloquent and dispassionate read. Wholly better than the trite peddled by the highly paid "journos" who pander to the squalid and embarrassing masses that constitute the ingerland supporters most have become.

I have an innate desire to love my country and my fellow countrymen, but it is constantly undermined by what they say (chant/grunt), do and value. And I sooooo wish we had something better for a national anthem than that dirge wishing a mythical deity to look after a Saxon overlord's sovereignty over what the celts originally found and had occupied by the Italians and stolen by the Normans. An anthem begging somebody to rule us ffs!

Give us something rousing, and something worth fighting for (in a football sense) – Jerusalem – but with words that make sense. FFS even the archers theme tune would be more rousing.

I feel much better now.

Thanks Paul, always good to read your level headed, agenda-free match reports. Much better than a lot of the "professional" media reports scrabbling for controversy and drama.

Enjoy the next one, Hopefully Mirallas will get the nod again.

Great stuff, Paul... but I’m afraid I can’t agree with you saying Barkley was excellent in spells. I thought he was poor and I’m a big fan. I thought he got dragged down by the rest of the turgid shite playing alongside him; nothing happened for him at all. Though it was not for the want of trying. Barkley actually looks to me a yard quicker in his head than the rest of the midfield... so maybe the likes of Wilshere, Milner and the pedestrian Lallana simply can’t read what he’s going to do.

That performance was dull and unimaginative as you’ll see and to think Hodgson came out and praised the players.... no wonder the national team is shite. And to think this octogenarian yes-man is running it for the next 2 years... at least I feel for anyone going to pay to watch that rubbish, I really do.