Brazil 3 – 1 Croatia
Croatia has every right to feel extremely hard done-by here. They were excellent and deserved at least one point. In fact, I think you could make the argument that they were the better team over 90 minutes. Brazil looked better in the first half, albeit a bit flat. It really seemed like Croatia was trying to play on the counter without having really sorted out what that would look like. The midfield trio were very good at winning the ball but all seemed to hold back a lot. Which meant when the ball went down the wings there wasn’t much to work with in the center.
But in the second half, they really got a strong handle on things. Modric in particular was extremely good. Comfortable on the ball, great vision, picking out high quality passes. Rakitic was also impressive. He made a few more dumb mistakes and wasn’t quite as stable. But he also made a bunch of great long diagonal passes that seemed to catch Brazil totally by surprise and opened up the whole field. Croatia’s midfield was also excellent (and Brazil extremely accommodating) about winning the ball in the attacking half. I lost track of how many times Brazil got caught in possession in terribly dangerous locations. But it was a lot.
For Brazil, Fred was pretty useless (apart from his dive) and Hulk wasn’t much better. The defense was weak. Julio Cesar looked hesitant and weak on a bunch of shots. And they gave up possession in dangerous spots WAY too easily. They got the three points because of some terrible refereeing and some terrible goalkeeping.
So, on the first count, I hate it when the ref becomes the story, but there’s really no way around it here. Things were locked at 1-1 and Brazil really didn’t look like they had any path to another goal, when a penalty was awarded for absolutely nothing. I often try to remember just how fast things move and just how hard it is to keep track of everything. But in this case it looked like a dive the first time and every time after. Just a terrible decision to award a penalty. And he made a bunch of other questionable calls, including several that were just as game-changing. Disallowing the potential second Croatian goal was a 60/40 call, so I can’t complain about that one too much. But it sure seemed like there was a foul in the dis-possession that led to Brazil’s third goal. I haven’t been able to see a good enough replay of it to be sure, but he was clattered into from behind and knocked to the ground. Without that, Oscar doesn’t get the chance to shoot.
Then there’s Pletikosa, the hapless Croatian keeper, who was at fault to some degree on all three of the goals. What he was doing on Oscar’s shot, I have no idea. I guess he was just surprised that it was poked? But a quality keeper will stop that shot much more often than not.
Given all that, I’ve already seen a number of comments saying that Brazil were terrible, or shouldn’t be considered favorites anymore. While there’s no denying they didn’t look great today, that seems an overreaction. Their defense will be better, Oscar was superb, Neymar showed some real class. And for a few stretches they looked VERY good. The 10-15 leading up to their first goals they were slashing through Croatia. And they looked excellent to close out the first half, too. I still think they’re more likely than not to make the semifinals…and anything is possible from there.
Predictions for tomorrow:
- Mexico 1 – 1 Cameroon
- Spain 1 – 1 Netherlands
- Chile 3 – 1 Australia
I could see any of the three results in the first game, and possibly in the second one (though I would be a bit surprised if the Dutch win). It’s hard to see anything but a Chile win, though. If they want to advance from this group they absolutely must beat Australia, and it sure wouldn’t hurt to do so by a big margin.