Brazil wins against Croatia 3-1 with a controversial victory

The first match of the 2014 FIFA World Cup ends with a “tainted” victory for the home team.

Croatia was winning with an own-goal by Brazil’s Marcelo Vieria. While Croatia didn’t actually scored a goal on their own, many people feel they were cheated when Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura awarded a penalty kick after Brazil’s Fred took a dive in the 69th minute of the match.

Croatia’s coach Niko Kovac had something to say about it afterwards.

He also added,

If that’s how we start the World Cup, we’d better give it up now and go home. We talk about respect, that wasn’t respect, Croatia didn’t get any. If that’s a penalty, we don’t need to play football anymore. Let’s play basketball instead. It’s a shame.

This is one of the reasons I’m in favor of using cameras and giant screens on the field for the referees the evaluate controversial calls, but FIFA won’t allow it.

I hope the other referees don’t make this kind of “mistakes.”