2014 FIFA World Cup Finals Discussion

That game proved Brazil are not the favourites? Huh?

Croatia have one of the best sides outside of the usual suspects expected to go far, and were always going to prove difficult to beat. To win 3-1 after going a goal down is a great result. Fantastic performances from Neymar and Oscar, the latter is always exceptional for his country.

It would've been a good result if they had actually earned it themselves. This was just a present from the referee.

Oscar was great, though, and Neymar played a very good first half.

__________________
Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019

First of all,they won 3-1 with gifted penalty,it was 1-1 when they had that penalty so without it,who knows what could happen.Second:As you said,Brazil was a goal down,first half was horrible,Croatia still had chances later on.Nothing special in this game.

__________________
“By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be.”

Brazil had about 70% of the ball possession in the first half and 3 times more passes, they were under pressure for most of the game as the ball was always on their side of the court. Croatia did not score a single goal in the game and the only point they scored was a gift from Brazil, yet they lost 3-1. Clearly they were playing something out of their league. It felt like a game between two Brazilian soccer league 1st division and 3rd division teams to me.

He's not saying Croatia deserved to win or played better than Brazil, but if everything would've been just, the game would've ended with a draw.
The own goal could just as well have been a normal goal if the Croatian player in front of Marcelo would've touched the ball better. It was definitely not an out of the blue present, it was a proper offensive action (the second solid attack from Croatia at that moment of the game, while Brazil hadn't done anything yet).
Also, Croatia actually scored a legitimate goal, but the referee saw a fault against Julio Caesar, while he actually just let the ball slip out of his hands (to be fair, the referee whistled very early, but if they would've played further, it would've ended in a goal anyway, I think).

Brazil's second goal was a gift from the referee. If the referee didn't call the penalty, it would've probably been a draw, plain and simple, and Croatia would definitely not have stolen it.

Also, ball possession and passes say nothing about the result. Brazil is just a team that likes to play the game with a lot of ball possession, while Croatia's strategy was to organize well in the defence and to set up quick counter attacks. Their strategy worked wonderfully, until that incomprehensible penalty.

I was supporting for Brazil, honest to God, but this wasn't a good game of theirs. I genuinely believe it would've been a draw if the game had been fair and square.

There was a huge amount of corruption involved in this world cup, about several billion dollars were stolen in various ways and that's what the protests are about and yes, there was a problem with the cup's organization that they scheduled games in major cities in the country that have no football culture (such as Manaus) just to have the whole country covered and so they built stadiums were they will not be used afterwards. But these are point problems and they do not justify banning the world cup from the country.

IMO they should have used only the cities of Săo Paulo, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Salvador, Vitoria and Florianopolis for the cup and reduced the amount of money to build new stadiums while reducing corruption. They also should have used the cup as a reason to improve security in the cities as Brazilian cities are notoriously dangerous. The cost of the world cup would be a couple of billion dollars, nothing compared to the government budget of 900 billion dollars (about 1/4 of the US's government budget).

Of course they wasted 14 billion dollars on the cup, but note that's still only 1.5% of the government annual revenues so the long run cost of the cup is still zero on Brazilian society.

However, banning Brazil from hosting the world cup, the 6th largest economy in the world and 5th largest country by population and land area, is completely absurd.

Disagree completely. The correlation between ball possession, number of passes and outcome of football games is extremely high.

Wonderfully indeed, they scored zero goals, had a very small number of chances and were under pressure for the entire game while suffering 3 goals.

Playing on the defensive and trying to counterattack is what happens when you pit a 3rd division team against a 1st division team. They usually lose.

I think whilst Croatia gave it a real good go, and maybe deserved a point. Brazil, whether they were helped or not, still got the job done. It was always going to be a tough game, huge pressure on them against a very good side with nothing to lose. A 1-0 scrappy win would have still been a great result in my opinion. Huge pressure off their back, and a very professional win despite the circumstances, IMO.

Croatia scored 2 goals (one unfairly disallowed) and Brazil didn't know what to do against their defence at all. The first goal from Brazil was a well placed ball from a quality player, the second goal came out of an undeserved penalty and the third goal came out of a counter from Brazil after Croatia was forced to attack because they were undeservedly behind and because their second goal was unjustly rebuked.

Brazil was not AT ALL ruling over the game, except for the second part of the first half, which was good. They're NEVER going to beat teams like Germany, Spain or Argentina if they keep playing like that for the rest of the tournament.

Stay objective and just admit that your team was not anywhere near worthy of being the next World Champion last night. It's only the first game, so they can still improve, but they were just not really doing well during most of the game.

@Daniel: I disagree. Justice didn't prevail last night and I can't support a win that was caused by wrong decisions from the referee, even if I wanted Brazil to win. They weren't any good in the second half and didn't play like one of the greatest teams in the world at any point.
I think pretty much everyone will agree that we expect much more from Brazil than what we saw last night.

The referees are even worse this game! Truly atrocious what they're doing to Mexico here.

I thought it was a great game to start the World Cup. Brazil was gifted that win tho. I can't see them winning the World Cup, it's one of there weakest teams in years. Neymar was Meh, Hulk and Fred where terrible. Oscar was fantastic, and I've always been a big fan of Marcelo.

__________________

What? Have you forgotten their team for the 2006 and 2010 world cup?


This was by no means a terrific game of theirs, but the same can be said of Spain's 2010 opening game. That was WAY more dramatic, and look where they ended up. Offensive, Brazil is just a whirlwind. They key is neutralizing Oscar, then take advantage of Luiz' and Alves' absent-mindedness in the back.


That being said, BELGIUM FTW VIA KOMPANY SMASH!

Nope I haven't forgotten. Brazil is driven by Oscar, shut him out and they become a very average team. There defence is constantly caught out of position. Neymar is one the most overrated players in the World Cup.

What an entertaining game this is. Well done Holland!

Nobody in here has pooped their pants over that RVP header? You guys disappoint me.

I fancy Holland to win the tournament now. My money is currently on Brazil. I may have to put a few quid on Holland.

Losing's one thing. But losing like that is going to take a lot to come back from. It's all about mental strength now. Spain weren't good, Holland were great, but Casillas was really poor.. Despite that, Pique and Ramos shouldn't escape comment. They looked out of position all night.

__________________
5-time MoFo Award winner.

I wouldn't wet yourself just yet. That was a fantastic game. But it was one game and, had Spain been Spain, the game would've probably been beyond the Dutch before they scored their first goal.

Too late.

Very happy for The Netherlands. That was freaking amazing.