There were many sights to behold during the couple of hours I spent on the roads of Pernambuco state today but the most impressive was the number of games of soccer being played.

Games of all shapes and sizes lined the main road from Olinda and through Recife.

There were barefoot, topless boys haring around waterlogged clay pitches with rickety goalposts; seven-­a-side games between older youths on concrete courts; kickarounds with just a netting fence separating the play from the traffic; training ­sessions with kids in bibs being put through their paces around cones on artificial turf; and teenagers trying to humiliate one another using their skills on the sidewalk.

The mid-afternoon was being spent the same way wherever there were children, both in the city and deeper into the countryside of the national park. It might be partly due to the fever that grips any ­nation when their team progress in a World Cup but the public and private facilities that dominate every town indicate the permanent popularity of soccer. It's a stark contrast to other countries, where children participating in the sport seems to drop further every year.

These games, both impromptu and organized, also serve as a reminder of the truth behind Brazil's ongoing success as a soccer powerhouse.

Despite the romantic notion, it's not the beaches that provide the talent that has delivered five World Cups and hopes of a sixth. No, it's the small-sided games played out on mud planes and slivers of concrete all across the country. To put it into perspective, Brazil is a roughly the size of Europe and the vast majority of that does not enjoy a coastline. Beach soccer is real enough but it is a game that most of the playing populace will never participate in.

The current Brazil squad is a fine example ­reflecting the real situation in Brazilian soccer.

The largest home state is Sao Paulo and the ­metropolitan area of its eponymous city, from which Victor, David Luiz, Paulinho, Luiz Gustavo, Oscar, Willian, Jo and Neymar all come.

Elsewhere Thiago Silva, Marcelo, Ramires and Julio Cesar are from the city of Rio de Janeiro and its surrounds, while other players come from the length if not breadth of the country. From Bahia's Dani Alves and Pernambuco's Hernanes in the north to Maicon in Rio Grande do Sul in the south via the states of Parana, Minas Gerais, Paraiba and Espírito Santo, this is a team formed from all over this vast country.

If the current squad is united by some shared ­formative experience then it is certainly not from dribbling through the sand dunes but maybe through futsal.

The small-sided cousin of the world game is played with a heavier ball to minimize bounce and encourages its players to get the ball on the floor and play. It also puts a heavy stress on being able to use both feet, employ skill to play out of tight situations and play at pace.

Essentially, it provides all of the ­initial raw characteristics that coaches can develop into world-class soccer stars.

There's no coincidence that success stories like Brazil, Germany and Spain are countries that have a familiarity with futsal.

The sport, or some form of it, is most popular in Brazil and it is credited as crucial to Marcelo's development along with past stars such as Ronaldinho and Romario. Even if this year's Brazil team don't make it all the way, you can sense from what you see on the streets that the sixth world crown is only just a ­matter of time.