First game startingg soon. Prepared drinks and snacks. Go, Croatia, go!

Absolutely absurd penalty and penalty kick assigned by the referee.  Unbelievably bull**** call that will likely win the game for Brazil.  

 

Edit:  And the referee ****s Croatia over again.  I'n not surprised to see crooked refereeing in the World Cup, that's standard practice.  I just didn't expect to see it this early in the tourney.

Edited June 12, 201411 yr by Keyrock

Croatia were robbed. Undeserved losers.

Absolute bummer - Croatia deserved a lot more.

This Brazil doesn't amount to much.

I only skimmed the match but every time I did it seemed some Croat was getting booked for something that looked pretty innocuous.

 

 

Well, in that case...

 

Ah yes, time for my quadrennial view of perhaps the only tournament x team y song I can actually stomach.

Both goalkeepers were hilariously bad.

 

 

Even our national team could have had this Brazil, shockingly bad. The only thing that saved them tonight was the referee's helping hand.

 

Nothing lost for Croatia though, I am sure they can handle Mexico and Cameroon. They showed their quality tonight, but they have to keep going when they are ahead, because as tonight shows one goal difference is never enough to rest on your laurels.

Why do the refs consistently fall for these blatant dives?

 

It reminds me of my days watching WWF (WWE) wrestling, when the referees would miss glaringly obvious dirty tricks by the "heel" wrestlers, while every fan in the audience is yelling "he's cheating!".

But, at least the WWF refs are acting like dummies not actual dummies. L0L

It's more likely it is the sort of 'soft bias' you frequently get in many sports when it looks like a favoured, home team may lose and then every decision seems to go in their favour, that happens a lot and is probably subconscious rather than deliberate. Croatia winning would have been massively deflating (for Brazil that is, I imagine most neutrals were cheering the red and whites) for a tournament that is and has been... not without controversy, domestically.

 

But outright corruption can hardly be ruled out given the state of football and the festering canker at its top. I still remember the horrible clusterasterisk of the 2006 venue award where our delegate ignored instructions and gave Germany rather than RSA the cup that time- and how basically nothing changed except a quickly abandoned host rotation policy- let alone the still unwinding mess of the Qatar bid's success for 2022 and the Blatter patronage system kicking in for yet another term. It's actually kind of ironic that the Russian bid for 2018 has seemingly missed out on the controversy so far given all the Sochi stuff was only a few months ago and it really says something about how crap the rest of the stuff has been.

I'd like to give the ref the benefit of the doubt, but the foul call that gave Brazil the penalty kick which resulted in the winning goal was so egregiously bad that it's hard for me to put it off as human error.  It wasn't even a case of a guy taking a dive and the ref falling for it, there was literally nothing during that play that even remotely resembled a rough, poorly drawn caricature of a foul.  This wasn't a case of the ref giving a 50/50, or even a 70/30 play to Brazil, this was a case of the ref conjuring a foul out of thin air.

As some of you know, I'm Croatian. I wouldn't be pissed as nearly as much if Brazil scored 9 clean goals like I'm at the current moment. 

 

The Japanese referee, and FIFA in general, will root for Brasil and I don't doubt we will see more of this in favor of the home team because Brasil must by all means necessary advance further. Frikin disgrace if you ask me. Frikin shame that the turning point of this game was a blunt mistake. Feel so sorry for our players. 

 

But with all the Fair Play bull**** from FIFA, big and small actors will never have the same treatment, not in football, not in pretty much anything. 

 

Ahh.. Soccer: World Wide Popularity. World Wide Butthurt.

Two bad calls. The run up to the Oscar goal had a Croat player getting upended, thought that was going to be a foul.

The referees certainly weren't world class. Poor Croatia! After the first 25 minutes, I reckon their cool and fast counter-attacks along the lines would simply pull the pants down the Brasilian foot-on-foot fondling of the ball.

 

My favourite moment was when a pretty tiny Brasilian player saw a Croatian receiving a high ball by his forehead, and realizing he didn't have a chance in that duel, he just tackled the Croatian outright!   It was in the 20th minute or something. Amazingly, the Croatian barely winced, and the Brasilian bounced off of him. 

 

Definitely should have been a foul.  Had to be that Chelsea fool.

Edited June 13, 201411 yr by Malcador

The entire match was a disgrace.

Mexico has scored twice. Both goals were called offside. Incorrectly.

 

This WC is off to a great start.

Sounds like the referees are working hard to lobby for video support.

Sounds like the referees are working hard to lobby for video support.

 

Big game tonight for your country against your old enemy of the last world cup final. You must be looking forward to it ?

Not really. Maybe this years selection is more sportsmanlike than the incarnation of Oranje in the last European Championship, but I'm not holding my breath. Still haven't decided whether or not I'm actually going to watch it.

Not really. Maybe this years selection is more sportsmanlike than the incarnation of Oranje in the last European Championship, but I'm not holding my breath. Still haven't decided whether or not I'm actually going to watch it.

 

I hear you, I'll be watching the game on and off tonight