You might not have noticed, but last week the United States national soccer team was thoroughly humiliated in the Copa America soccer tournament held in Venezuela this month. The U.S. team only garnered a pair of goals and exited with three losses and in last place overall in the tournament.

The tournament was one of several large athletic events held in South America that have been a bit of a building boom for the countries involved.

According to Gerpronica, the company performing oversight over the Copa America 2007 construction effort, almost $400 million was spent on construction and upgrades to the nine stadiums across Venezuela. That was part of an almost $1 billion effort on the part of the Venezuelan government to improve transportation and event infrastructure, the Associated Press reported.

This thread on the Big Soccer forums has pictures of the construction process as well as shots from inside the stadiums during the matches. Despite the problems with construction delays the matches are being held and the venues are able to support the crowds.

C.J. Schexnayder

The Venezuelan authorities took a bit of heat from the foreign press for not having the stadiums in complete readiness for the start of the tournament. Group B, which includes Brazil, Ecuador, Chile and Mexico were unable to train at their designated stadium due to the last-minute construction efforts.

Sports Illustrated's Tim Vickery blasted the effort as "too ambitious" and was aghast that work was still being done on the stadium in Barquisimeto a week into the tournament.

"The stadium looks like a construction site," he wrote on July 4. "There is frantic effort going on around me by an army of hard-hatted construction workers. There are open elevator shafts all over the place, and lots of banging, shouting and scrubbing in a bid to get things as near to ready as possible for the games."

Yet this is the exact same situation that occurred when Peru hosted the tournament in 2004 although, in fairness, Peru spent a fraction of the amount Venezuela did on stadium and infrastructure upgrades. I recall people standing in line to enter the Elias Aguirre Stadium in Chiclayo while steam still rolled off the just-laid asphalt pavement. Kids playing pick-up games of soccer found their shoes and ball blackened within minutes by the sticky surface.

Brazil, on the other hand, cannot afford to be as sanguine as Venezuela and Peru. The Pan-Am Games that start on Friday are a critical test for the country's ability to put on a major international sporting event. And with both the 2014 World Cup and a possible 2016 Olympic bid in its sights that leaves very little room for error.

Construction delays for the Pan-Am Games garnered the intervention of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva himself who announced that he was appointing himself personal supervisor of the preparations. And it will be a close finish.

About 5,500 athletes from 42 countries across the hemisphere are expected to attend the July 13-29 games, the Associated Press reported. In addition there will be 2,000 delegation members, 3,000 journalists and 15,000 volunteers.

To prepare, federal, state and municipal governments have spent nearly $2.1 billion — about eight times more than originally projected — for organization, infrastructure and security. The federal police will supply 2,800 officers, trained in methods used by security forces at the World Cup in Germany. An additional 21,000 agents of both the federal and local police forces will be brought in to bolster security.