Croatian Stew

“If that’s a penalty, we don’t need to play football any more. Let’s play basketball instead. The lads played their hearts out but that was outright thuggery by a referee who was just out of his depth for a game of this magnitude.”

Hoo boy, those are strong words. Any guess whose mouth they came from? If you guessed Croatian coach Niko Kovac then give yourself some mlinci!

Relax, Niko! Smell the pretty flowers! Ahhhh, that's better.

Brazil trounced Croatia, but the game itself was much closer than the score-line shows. Never mind that  Brazil scored all 4 goals in this game. The first one happened to be an own goal. Credit Croatia for their eagerness in the attack, but it was a simple mistake by Marcelo as he attempted to deflect a pass across the goal and instead deflected it into his own net.

"I finally scored!! YEAH! Hey, where are my high fives? Guys?"

The second goal was one the Croatian keeper likely wanted back. To be fair, he was partially screened when Neymar made contact and could only wave as the ball found the far side of the net.

It was the third goal of the match that stirred controversy. Up to that point it had been fairly easy to spot players getting legitimately knocked to the pitch with nary a foul called. Then Croatia’s Dejan Lovren decided to tickle Fred. Fred flopped out. The ref pointed to the spot, and Neymar scored on the penalty, the ball glancing off the keeper’s hands into the top portion of the net.

Brazil scored another later on to put the nails in the coffin, but to tell you the truth it wasn’t a particularly impressive performance.

Don’t get me wrong; even without the controversy this one was never in doubt. Croatia can’t win if they can’t score, and Brazil owned the ball for most of the match. But despite the individual flair the Brazilians displayed, I think they’re going to need to step it up if they’re going to make it to the semi-final match where they lose to Grr-many.

BOLD PREDICTIONS FOR TODAY:

MEXICO 1, CAMEROOOOOOOON, 0

SPAIN 1, NETHERLANDS 0

CHILE 2, AUSTRALIA 1