Get free access to the most comprehensive World Cup coverage in The Athletic app.Baptising a whole airliner, a 100-vehicle convoy and a team-bonding meal in an empty stadium… World Cup teams have been enjoying some memorable send-offs in the past week.The tradition of holding a farewell ceremony for sides leaving for major tournaments is not new, but in the social media age it seems countries are coming up with ever more extravagant ways of making their mark — often making a cultural point in the process.Take Brazil, for example. It has become something of a cliche to refer to football in the country — which is the only nation to have played in every FIFA World Cup, and won it a record five times — as a religion.Perhaps no surprise, then, that the aircraft taking the squad to New Jersey was given a traditional ‘baptism’ before take-off at Rio de Janeiro’s Galeao airport. The process involves two fire trucks either side of the plane creating a water arch, which the jet passes under on the runway. It was duly repeated when it landed at Newark International Airport on Tuesday.The symbolic blessing is an aviation tradition, which sometimes takes place before important trips or maiden flights.Brazil’s plane is ‘blessed’ at Newark (Jordan Bank/Getty Images)Brazil is managed by a dug-out legend in Carlo Ancelotti, but the players were visited by another national hero, former boss Felipe Scolari — who led the team to glory in 2002 — for a motivational speech in the days before they left. It must have done the trick, with the team beating Panama 6-2 in their final home warm-up game at the Maracana stadium on Monday before their flight to the U.S.Not to be outdone, Turkey is another football-obsessed nation which ensured the national team got a special farewell.The players’ coach journey to the airport in Istanbul was followed by a convoy of more than 100 vehicles decorated in the red of the national flag, horns blaring as they crossed the Bosphorus.