Brazil 3-1 Croatia: Neymar scores twice (and escapes a sending off) as Oscar stunner rounds off opening win for hosts

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Oscar, the man of the match, also scored the goal of the night and placed sufficient distance between these teams to ensure credibility, of sorts. Will it be enough to save this World Cup from the wave of cynicism that overwhelms any event touched by FIFA these days? We shall see.

A tournament that needed a Brazilian win, got one. It also got an outrageously poor penalty award, to the hosts, an equally soft disallowed goal, for their opponents and a dubious decision that kept the poster boy of the tournament and scorer of two Brazilian goals, Neymar, on the field when he could easily have been sent off. The score at the time was 1-0 to Croatia.

So, not a good night for referee Yuichi Nishimura of Japan who will feature in many conspiracy theorists most fevered speculations from here. He was almost certainly useless, not corrupt, but it is true that his three big errors were all to the benefit of one team.

FIFA only have themselves to blame, therefore, for this fresh round of slander and negativity. They are now regarded as a rogue organisation – an administrative axis of evil, if you will – and it is a very small step from believing events around the game are corrupt, to thinking the same applies to the game itself.

The need for Brazilian success here has been universally agreed and the disgust with FIFA is now so great, all too many can imagine them facilitating results like any other backdoor deal.

Of course, if FIFA were so desperate to ensure Brazilian progress they would surely not have placed them on a potential collision course with Spain or Holland – both of whom could be a real threat on this evidence – in round two, but logic won’t get too much play over the coming weeks if there are too many repeats of travesties like this.

It wasn’t that the best team didn’t win – they did – but the way it happened left a sour taste. Nobody should be more grateful for Oscar’s late intervention than Mr Nishimura.

Start with the decision on Neymar, the mildest of his three calamities. In the 27th minute, Neymar jumped for a ball with Luka Modric. Before he leapt, however, he glanced across to check the position of his opponent and, when he went up, poked a forearm in his face.

The look was the key. Referees will sometimes let such incidents slide if a collision appears inadvertent, but Neymar knew precisely what he was doing. So did Croatia, who reacted instantly. Nishimura brandished a yellow card but could just as easily have reached for red.

To give him the benefit of the doubt he might not have seen Neymar appraise the situation and merely thought him guilty of dangerous play. It would certainly have been a brave man who sent off Brazil’s hero in waiting in front of his home crowd less than 30 minutes into his first World Cup game, and as we were to discover Nishimura was not about to upset the locals.

The price of his leniency was high for Croatia, though, for two minutes later Neymar equalised an earlier goal.

Oscar did the hard yards, mopping up in midfield and riding two challenges to slip the ball to his team-mate, and there was undoubtedly contributory negligence from goalkeeper Stipe Pletikosa, who fell with all the grace of the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk but it was a priceless moment, nonetheless.

Neymar’s shot did not have great power and it wasn’t struck cleanly, either, but he somehow squirrelled it away, low, into a corner and with Pletikosa going down in instalments as the professionals say, it was enough to level the scores via the inside of a post. This was not the only time the Croatia goalkeeper was found wanting.

For Neymar it was a moment of personal triumph, the first Brazil No 10 to score a goal in a World Cup since Rivaldo in 2002. Yet while his first showed the hosts at their best, the second showed the game at its worst.

Source : Mail Online