2014 World Cup - Brazil Overcome Brave Croatia!

The first game of any World Cup is always the toughest - the months of anticipation built up means there is pressure to perform and win. Ever since FIFA stopped giving automatic qualification to the reigning champions, the opening game of the World Cup has featured the hosts.

This time, the hosts were none other than 5 time World Champions, tournament and crowd favourites, Brazil with Croatia the potential party poopers.

And boy were the Croats close to sending the capacity crowd at Arena Corinthians in Sao Paulo home in despair.

Ivan Rakitic - my man of the match for Croatia - and Luka Modric, normally midfielders who love to roam forward were busy all night trying to contain Brazil's talented attack, and they along with the rest of Dario Srna's men did it so well that a draw would have been a deserved result.

This performance will give them heart - it is always tough to play Brazil, let alone on their home turf - and they have Cameroon and Mexico to worry about next.

As for Brazil, the win was deserved given the amount of chances they made but the manner of the win certainly was debatable, thanks to a rather debatable penalty awarded to Brazil which would give Brazil the lead in the game.

There was no doubt that Brazil were the dominant side  after going down to the first own goal scored by a Brazilian - Real Madrid's Marcelo with the dubious honour, although he made up with a solid performance after that. They had plenty of chances to score and Stipe Pletikosa had to be on top of his game to keep his compatriots in the game.

It was a shame then that just as Pletikosa pretty much had the measure of Paulinho, Hulk, Neymar, Oscar, etc. he conceded a fairly soft goal to Neymar - a good shot from Neymar through a packed defence but perhaps he could have reacted faster to the goal. Questions could be asked whether Pletikosa could have done better with Oscar's goal in stoppage time.

Pletikosa almost saved Neymar's penalty to nearly redeem himself only for the ball to deflect off his hands into the net.

As for Oscar, he deserved his goal after a performance which justified Scolari's decision to pick him ahead of Willian in the attacking midfield role. He was busy, tenacious and dangerous with ball at feet. More performances like that and Brazil - and Chelsea - will be smiling.

So the first game is over and Brazil can now breath easy and look forward to the rest of the tournament knowing their title challenge is underway to a good if unconvincing start.

And FIFA is probably relieved as well after a controversial buildup to the tournament.