On Thursday, Brazil has managed an upset in the opening match of the 2014 World Cup, Yahoo Sports said. Critics point to the game-changing decision of referee Yuichi Nishimura, who awarded Brazil a penalty kick when Brazilian forward Fred dove allegedly without any contact from Croatian player Dejan Lovren.
The call was made when Brazil was tied with Croatia at 1-1 and at the 71st minute. As the stadium filled to the brim with rowdy 68,000-plus fans, the noise was further amplified as Brazil's Neymar shoots a penalty shot successfully.
Croatian coach Niko Kovac's comments about the referee decision seemed to have suggested biased officiating, which Yahoo Sports said has been a long-term problem in the tournament. He said, "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."
Croatia initially managed to stop the hearts of Brazilian fans when it first made the first goal of the tournament, courtesy of Ivica Olic crossing the ball from the left side low into a box, with the bal brushing off the leg of teammate Nikica Jelavic, knocking it past Brazilian goalkeeper Julio Cesar for the score. The Brazilian team retaliated thanks to the country's top threat, Neymar. After the penalty kick and somewhat a morale booster from fans in the stadium, Brazilian midfielder Oscar scored again from about 20 yards, securing the country's victory over Croatia.
On the other hand, Croatia's claims of biased refereeing might have been blamed on its sour loss against Brazil, considering that FIFA has employed a goal-line technology that might have also been used to check controversial calls. The Washington Post said FIFA has equipped all 12 World Cup stadiums with fourteen, high-speed cameras that could record 500 images per second, which will then be feed into a computer to digest the frames and for judges to certify whether a call is due. The designer of the system, German company GoalControl, has said that 2,400 tests has been run in Brazil without a mistake, insinuating that it should have ended debate on questionable refereeing.
