Impossible to say of course, but I doubt it was conscious favouritism. But opening game, host nation, massively partisan crowd, well…
There’s already a Brazil 2014 thread. Do we really need new threads for every match?
3-1! Brazil’s Oscar scores in extra time – 91 minutes
Nailed it!
Penalties really seem to be “overpowered” and break the balance of the game sometimes. It’s a bit analogous to NFL pass interference in a way.
Brazil scores in extra time (91 minutes) – 3-1!
Great run from Oscar!
ETA another goal that the Croatian keeper should have saved.
But wow. I expected a lot tighter play from Brazil. They’ve been a hot mess today.
Yep. He looked pretty flat-footed there.
Kudos to Croatia overall, though. They were outmatched, got screwed by a poor call, but stayed scrappy as hell. That match could easily have finished out 2-2.
Indeed!
Why oh why is there no instant replay on PK calls? Play has already completely stopped. Games are completely swung by one fallible human’s split-second view of fast and confusing action. It’s really a joke.
Total dive. What a shitty way for the World Cup to start.
You can see it here. In the ref’s defence he would have seen the defender’s hand on the shoulder of the Brazilian. In real time it may have looked like a real grab I guess. Fred certainly milked it for all he could.
Marcelo diving all over the place was annoying. Glad the refs and other Brazilians didn’t bother with it.
Thought the penalty call was unfair.
Thought Croatia played amazingly well, expected Brazil to win anyway.
Neymar is really hot.
Really, really angry about the refereeing in this game. The penalty was bad enough, but he called 20 fouls against Croatia vs. 5 for Brazil. FIVE. There is no way in hell they committed only five fouls, from what I saw. They were getting away with everything. I had serious concerns about exactly this going into the tournament and to see it borne out so soon is really discouraging.
Also, the Croatian keeper was a horror show.
Oh my, yes. He was driving me crazy. The penalty sucked. Might as well kick off the WC with some controversy I guess.
I was a little worried for Marcelo’s life had the OG been the only score. But that quickly went away when he started pulling the three year old who tripped on the playground Academy Award winning stuff.
Per Nate Silver, FIFA has asked US Soccer to have an organizing committee ready for 2022 WC if it is not held in Qatar.
Speaking of Qatar, highs between 107 and 111 in Doha for the next ten days.
Ref wasn’t great but the bigger story is that Brazil looked fairly average. They look very exposed at the back and you’d think the better teams will be better at exploiting that.
Still, exciting stuff. Spain vs Netherlands later.