Just before dawn broke behind the clouds shadowing the well-trodden sands of Copacabana Beach, the magnificent French facade of the hotel that defines the decadence of Rio’s high society was illuminated in all its splendor.

The Copacabana Palace, for 91 years the chosen home from home of Orson Welles, Brigitte Bardot and Princess Diana, is now the World Cup base for top FIFA officials. In front, a battery of heavily armed police from Brazil’s elite National Force stood silently.

Soon after 6 a.m., one of its less famous residents began to stir. On the back steps of the hotel’s imposing neo-classical edifice, where its fantasy world meets the grubby reality of one of Copacabana’s busiest roads, slept Anderson Marcelo Alencar, 32.

Shivering, sputtering and spitting as buses roared past a few yards away in the early morning gloom, he paused for a long time before revealing he had been homeless for five years: “I always tell people my address is the Copacabana Palace,” he said.

He owns nothing and eats out of rubbish bins. He fled his home after gangsters tried to kill his family and still does not know if his mother and sister survived. He sleeps on the steps every night, unless the entrance – to the hotel’s ballroom – is in use.

“Then I stand on the street until everyone has left,” he said. “Then I go to sleep.”

Although his daily life is closely intertwined with that of the hotel and the thousands of World Cup fans who tramp past every day, his is a different world. Three days after Brazil’s exit from the tournament, he had yet to learn the result.

“They lost? I don’t believe it,” he said.

“But that’s life. One day you win, one day you lose.”

Soon after first light, the beach began to hum. A middle-aged man lay on a mat doing exercises. Cleaners in plastic macs picked up trash with grabbers. A beach seller offered umbrellas for 10 reals ($4.50). Joggers made their way through the chilly surf.

Chilean Dani Quijada, 31, spent the night sheltering from the rain under a scaffolded police lookout post with his backpack. “I left Chile a month ago with $350,” he said. “I hitchhiked through Bolivia and tried to make it to as many games as possible.

“But soon the money began to run out. In Cuiabá, I ended up exchanging my new camera for two tickets. I don’t regret it. It was an amazing experience and this is a historic moment. Who knows when there’ll be another World Cup in South America?

“We arrived in Rio last night. I don’t have a ticket for the final or the money to buy one. But the important thing is the party. I’ll be able to tell people for the rest of my life that I was in Rio de Janeiro for the final of the World Cup. This is wonderful.”

Six Argentines had slept under a nearby lifeguard post. Surrounded by their rucksacks, a bottle of Coke and a wooden guitar, they chanted: “Campeones del mundo!”

They raced to the sea, where dark waves turned to turquoise as they crashed into the beach, and shouted as they entered the water. Clapping their hands as a drum beat, they started to sing a song, to the tune of Bad Moon Rising, that would reverberate around Copacabana all day:

Brazil, tell me how you feel … to have your daddy in your own home …I swear that with every passing year … we will never forget …That Diego [Maradona] dribbled past you, and Caniggia scored against you … you have been crying since Italy [in 1990] to today …With Messi you will see, the Cup will come to us … Maradona is better than Pelé.

Around midday, the sun began to break through onto the Portuguese pavements that skirt the beach. “I’ve never seen so many foreigners,” said José Xavier, a street artist who has been building sand sculptures here for 28 years.

His work, which he mans from 9am to 9pm every day, includes intricate models of Rio landmarks Christ the Redeemer, Sugar Loaf Mountain and the Lapa Arches.

“During the World Cup Copacabana is the capital of the world,” he said. “It is the most democratic place in the world. Here we have religious people, tourists, thieves, prostitutes, transvestites and artists that all the people can understand.”

Clown Roberson Martins de Carvalho, 37, posed with tourists in white face paint and a black suit and hawker Maria Angelita de Lima, 71, sold knock-off Brazil shirts for 30 reals ($14). “I have worked this spot for 49 years,” she said.

Nearby, a newer arrival sold World Cup football stickers for 5 reals ($2.20). Wearing the shirt of his hometown club Atlético Belgrano, Argentine Germán Arnedo, 23, told of his 1,800-mile six-day car journey from Córdoba.

“This is the first time I have been outside Argentina and the first time I have seen the sea,” he said. “It is a wonderful place and I do not regret not getting to see a match.”

Sleeping in his car with two friends, he hopes the 50 reals ($23) a day he is making will be enough to pay for the gasoline for their return journey.

As the sun sank low into the sky a team of Argentines took on a team of Germans on a beachside football pitch as a man dressed as the pope looked on. With the evening drawing in, tourists and locals alike were drawn to the beach kiosks that sell chilled beer, caipirinhas and fried shrimp at plastic tables.

Holding fort at one was Gaúcho da Copa, the 70-year-old Brazil fan who became famous around the world after he was pictured clutching a replica World Cup trophy with his face contorted in agony during his country’s 7-1 defeat to Germany.

With endless good humor, he posed for photos with fans. “I must have done this ten thousand times today already,” he said, taking a sip from his coconut.

“I have attended six World Cups and seen 154 Brazil games but that was the worst – a catastrophe,” he added. “And the politicians stole, did things wrong and almost blew the Cup. But the Brazilian people have made this the best World Cup in history.”

Along the beach, an evening reception was being held on a second-story balcony of the Copacabana Palace. Besuited guests sipped wine next to mini palm trees and flat-screen televisions. Few turned to look at the beach, where many hundreds of Argentine fans had gathered, banging drums, waving shirts and singing their song.

As midnight approached, Priscilla, 26, stood under a streetlight and was eyed up by an old man in a Colombian hat and scarf. In this corner of Copacabana, hawkers sell cans of beer and skewers of barbecued meat and women sell themselves.

The closure of a nearby bar that was the center of the tourist sex trade here simply means the ladies and their clients populate the sodden pavement outside.

Priscilla, dressed in a pink miniskirt and glittery bra and with long, matted blonde hair, became a prostitute five years ago after giving up studying to become a doctor. “I live in São Paulo,” she said. “But I am here for the Cup. I am making about 1,000 reals ($450) a night for few hours’ work. The Mexicans and Arabs are the best.”

Later on, three middle-aged German men wander down the front, carrying a large Germany flag. Whenever they come across Argentines, they erupt into a chorus of “Olé olé, Super Deutschland, Super Deutschland olé olé.”

“I arrived today,” said smartly dressed Mathias Stieler von Heydekampf, 52. “And I will do absolutely anything to get a ticket for the final. I will be there. I will pay $5,000 if I have to. You can look me up, my grandfather was the CEO of Audi.”

As they stumbled on, it began to drizzle again. But rain or shine, rich or poor, win or lose, there were few in Copacabana this day who would have rather been anywhere else. As dawn approached, echoes of the Argentine song could still be heard in the distance.

(Photography by Meeri Koutaniemi)