SAO PAULO — Looking surprisingly stylish and astoundingly composed for a coach who had just labored through more than 90 minutes of excruciatingly competitive soccer, and lost on a lousy call, Croatia’s Niko Kovac smirked at the first question presented to him, in English. He chose to respond in his native language, which was a bit of a shame for those of us who do not speak it.
Because the translation is never quite the same. And still his 3-minute response crackled with criticism of the match referee, Yuichi Nishimura, who awarded a dubious penalty to a Brazil side that couldn’t find any other way to win in the opener of the 2014 FIFA World Cup at Arena de Sao Paulo.
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“If that’s a penalty, we don’t need to play more football. Let’s play basketball,” Kovac said. “It’s a shame. We are working hard, we come to the World Cup, and then we come to a referee that is not worthy of that level.”
Indeed, with the score tied near the 71-minute mark, Croatia defender Dejan Lovren put his left hand on the left shoulder of Brazil striker Fred, who was posting up trying to receive the ball near the center of the 18-yard box. Indeed, Fred fell to the turf as Croatian center back Vedran Corluka stepped in to clear away a pass that was falling short of its target.
It was hard to extrapolate a cause-and-effect to the first of those two actions, and yet Nishimura pointed directly to the spot, calling a penalty (and yellow card) against Lovren. Oddly, Nishimura pointed several times more to the spot as he walked toward the end line and turned to face the pitch — and a siege of angry Croatia players who recognized they’d just lost a game they had been controlling, almost dominating.
“I must say the referee was completely out of his depth,” Kovac said.
“I had a feeling this was judged by one game for us, and one game for Brazil.”
Nishimura had no particular issues up to that point, not that Brazil wasn’t doing everything it could to make it terribly hard on him.
The Brazilians surrendered an own goal in the 11th minute as the result of a sizzling left-footed cross by Ivica Olic that left back Marcelo poked into the net, but even after superstar No. 10 Neymar tied the game with a lovely strike 18 minutes later they never played with the composure or control that might have been expected of the pre-tournament favorites playing before a decidedly home crowd.
Their overreactions to various fouls easily could have led to a flood of yellow cards had the referee been as “out of his depth” as Kovac suggested. There had been only one against Croatia before Nishimura stunningly awarded the penalty on what so obviously was not a significant foul — if it was a foul at all.
With Neymar headed to the penalty spot, Croatia knew there was little chance it would not fall behind 2-1, and thus even less chance that the draw that seemed so likely for so much of the night would be theirs in the end. Even though goalkeeper Stipe Pletikosa did not fall victim to Neymar’s stutter-step, guessed correctly and surged to his right, Neymar struck the ball so viciously it bounced through the keeper’s hand and into the net.
Brazil’s Oscar scored the best goal of the night to make it 3-1 for a little insurance before the end, but it seems unlikely that would have developed had not Croatia been overcommitted in seeking an equalizer it should not have needed.
“If that’s how we start the World Cup, we better give it up and go home,” Kovac said. “We talk about respect; that wasn’t respect.
“If we continue in this way, we will have a circus.”