But Rio de Janeiro native Azevedo, who has been playing professionally in Sao Paulo for SESI Water Polo, believes the 2016 Summer Olympics will flourish in the same way as the 2014 football World Cup hosted by Brazil.
"One of the great things about the Brazilians is that they really love throwing a good party," Azevedo said on a United States Olympic Committee teleconference call on Thursday.
"I was down there for the (football) World Cup and there was a lot of speculation then as to how possibly this is going to be a failure. All the stadiums were having problems but people ended up really loving the World Cup.
"I have the same feeling it's going to go down (like that) in this Olympics."
Azevedo will be representing the U.S. in his fifth Olympic Games, and he vividly recalls the doom and gloom about infrastructure, transport and athlete accommodation during the build-up to the 2004 Athens Games.
"Going into Athens, there were so many things that were 'going to go wrong' and it was going to be 'a terrible Olympics' and in the end it really worked out to be a great one," he said.
Azevedo helped the U.S. water polo team clinch the silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Games before the squad then lost direction and failed to medal at the 2012 London Games.
"We kind of kept the same team and made a lot of mistakes training wise, guys got complacent," he said. "One of the worst things you can do when you win is have an ego, and that's definitely what happened to our team."
Four years later, Azevedo senses a very different energy and focus.
"We have some great young talent ... and I really feel that we are the most dangerous team in the world. Serbia has lost only three games in the last two-and-a-half years and all three of those games have been against us."
(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Larry Fine)
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