Brazil 3, Croatia 1

If that’s a penalty, then we can just stop playing football right now. … It’s ridiculous. If we continue in this way, we will have a circus. … If that’s how we start the World Cup, then we may as well give up and go home now.
[Niko Kovač, Croatian manager]

The Croatians played well, I thought, but the referee gifted the host country the longer straw. I hope this doesn’t keep on happening. This is the most inept Brazilian team I’ve seen; I don’t much fear it, but I do fear the referees.

In our house we had eleven spectators: ten humans and Bianca. We all thought the same about the penalty; and, in Ecuador, so did my mother.