Brazilians are trying hard to get ready to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Despite having a big territory rich with natural scenery, Brazil is not accustomed to many international visitors. The World Tourism Organization, which ranks tourist spending in different countries, puts it 39th on the list, behind much smaller countries like Lebanon, Croatia and Malaysia. Next year, the government expects tourism spending in Brazil to grow by 55 percent, thanks largely to the World Cup.

But as that time draws near, the general feeling among my compatriots is one of disbelief, as if somebody was expecting to see a turtle fly or explain the Schrödinger equation. The prevailing feeling is captured by the expression “Imagina na Copa ...” — Imagine during the Cup — spoken every time we see a 112-mile-long traffic jam, an overcrowded airport or the rising prices of hotels and flights. If things are already bad, imagine what they’ll be like during the World Cup.

Such pre-tournament pessimism is common. Last year the British were skeptical about the Olympics, which turned out to be O.K. So were the South Africans, who, after the last World Cup, celebrated the fact that “Armageddon did not happen,” in the words of the Africa correspondent for The Guardian, David Smith: “No one died. No one was stabbed, no one was kidnapped and no one took a wrong turn into the clutches of a gang of garrotters.”

But Brazilians are especially apocalyptic in our expectations. We belong to a country where corruption costs $28.7 billion to $47.7 billion a year, according to an estimate from the Industrial Federation of São Paulo State; that’s between 1.4 percent and 2.3 percent of the gross domestic product in 2010. We have poor infrastructure and serious social inequity. We worry about violence from drug trafficking and organized crime — last month, one gang from São Paulo threatened to unleash “a World Cup of terror” if the government didn’t agree to its demands.