It's World Cup time. Pretty much the only time I watch soccer, besides the occasional Portland Timbers game. Today was the first game, and no surprise Brasil made easy work of Croatia. I'm a Portugal fan, then Brasil, then US. One of my college drinking buddies, Wondo, made the US team, so I'll be rooting pretty hard for them except when they play Portugal a week from Sunday. 

Is is anyone else watching? 

Dude that's awesome that you know someone who's in the world cup! I watched the game yesterday and I had mixed feelings about it. I LOVE the world cup like most other people, but the Brazil Croatia game just had a sour taste to it. I felt like the refs gave the game to Brazil. A bad call for a penalty kick, and then taking away Croatia's equalizer late in the game? C'mon! It should've been a 2-2 tie, but instead ended up being a misleading 3-1 win.

I'm rooting for us. You have to root for your own country even if they're not favored to get past the first round.

I'm gonna watch every single game like I always do in a major tournament . I am also betting on the results with my family in a little game. Got the first result exactly right.
However Brazil was playing not as good as I expected. Not that I expected them to give Croatia a pounding I always thought that the Brazilians are an overrated team. Definitely world class but not clear favorites at all. Their defense is way too temperamental and gives the opponents way too much space and allows chances to happen. Same also happened when they played Serbia last week.
Of course the penalty was complete bullshit I couldn't believe it when the referee called it a penalty. Didn't even need the replay to see that. Diving in a world cup especially in the penalty area is absolutely despicable in my opinion and Brasil actually does that quite often. You touch them anywhere near the goal they will fall down. Just remember Rivaldo's acting show in the match against Turkey in 2002. That for me ruined everything I loved about Rivaldo's play. If you are deliberately trying to get somebody sent off the pitch in a world cup you are simply a bad person and a bad sportsman. The not given penalty for Croatia was understandable. The goalkeeper has special rights within the six-yard box and engaging in a duel with the keeper there will almost always result in a free kick for the goalkeepers team. Maybe not the clearest thing but not something to cry about. The 3:1 was a result of Croatia trying to score an equalizer and pushing forward quite hard so they just didn't have enough people in the back to defend the counter attack.
Of course this is all "what if" stuff but if the penalty wouldn't have been given this could have been a 1:1 win for Croatia in the end.
We'll see what happens today. Cameroon is a very strong team and better than ever in my opinion. I'm sure they will place second in the group behind Brazil.
As for group B I think Spain will sneak in a goal in the last minute against the Ntherlands and Chile will most likely beat Australia without much problems.

I don't watch soccer, but I saw that the Japanese team flew in on a Pokemon airplane, so I hope they win just for being cool.

I would love to see USA do well, but realistically, I am hoping that Germany puts the smackdown on Brazil and takes the world cup.

Im watching every game, that's tradition since USA 94 . I actually played for the US team in a NON-FIFA tournament in spain when I was 18. Best Football experience of my life.

I want Germany or Netherlands to Win the World Cup, however I still care about Mexico, if they make the 5th game I'm satisfied and call this WC a success.

However, I was disappointed by the first game. Brasil is definitely the Brasil I'm used to. The ref gave them that match. he was probably scared of being decapitated lol.

I drew Netherlands in a blind draw work pool. $5 buy in. People tell me that's a good draw, but I don't follow soccer.

Actually I'm gonna say right now if the Netherlands loses the game against Spain and Chile beats Australia they won't make it out of the group. One of the european titans will fall out of the group stage that is tradition

I want to say that would be Italy!

yesterday's opening game.

wow did Brazil suck
own goal, and a free penalty kick
their offense was pretty weak but they know how to capitalize on a mis-pass/def break
the 2 goals that they actually put in were weak but, even the goalie for Croatia couldn't do squat to stop them ( 2 rolling ball scores on the corners >.> ). I don't know what Croatia was trying to do in the match... maybe just protect the 1-0? I know they feel cheated from that penalty goal but, seriously if they would've stopped the other two goals it would've ended in a tie ( 1-1 or 2-2 ) since they also got robbed from the goal they actually made (that JP ref called a foul during a play with the Brazilian goalie/Croatian player).

If I see that JP Ref in any other game i would be terrified, who knows what f' ups he will do again.

today my euro team plays - Spain, they got a solid team (rematch with Netherlands)
my other teams are Argentina and Honduras, would be good to see Argentina (messi) go to the final and win. Now for Honduras if they can get through the 1st round that would be great.

I'd love it if the US won, but I'm also realistic. Hope we at least put on a good showing. And yeah, Brazil definitely had a little home cooking in their game yesterday.

I'm going to watch every game also like i always do when it comes to the World Cup.Soccer is huge in Europe and literally everyone watches the World Cup.Brazil didn't make easy work at all of Croatia..if you saw the game the whole match changed with a dubious penalty award for Brazil,if not it could have ended at 1-1,but i think Brazil deserved to win.Should be a great World Cup and the south americans will be favourites but i think a team from Europe can finally win it in South America.

Mexico vs Cameroon is about to start, we need a win here in order to stand a chance to advance to the knockout stage. Go Mexico!!

Mexico is starting good but only 11 minutes in and the referees fucked it up again. Disallowed goal against Mexico. Clearly not offside.
Mexico is playing a lot better than I expected. My guess was a 1:0 win for Cameroon. We'll see how it goes usually they need some time to get rollin

2 disallowed goals now, not pleased at all

I am always looking for things to back up the decisions of the referee. The first disallowed goal definitely wasn't offside. Missing this can happen but really shouldn't on the world stage. Unfortunate but can happen. The second disallowed goal was questionable at the very least. The ball was played by a player from Cameroon. If it would have been a Mexican it would have been barely offside. However I don't really see what Mexican the linesman saw there. Very fishy stuff.

I'm going to call it right now. You won't see any fireworks from Spain.

I have a $3 bet on Cameroon, so...go those guys!

I will have to say though, the refs so far are pretty bad.

Also, go Netherlands. Purely a betting thing. But, go go go!

There you go now Mexico got their goal

Mexico scored and deserved it..shocking refereeing in the 1st half

Mexicoooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!! Now is a good time to bring chicha because he is so lucky up there and always scores on the last 20 min of games.

They were just bad decisions but not shocking. At least you could see why the goals were disallowed and kinda understand the thoughts of the referees. It can happen that the referee just interrupts the game in the middle of an attack without any clear reason. Those are shocking moments
Also if Mexico wins there won't be much talk about the disallowed goals afterwards.

The second one was a little shocking..you said even if it was a mexico player who head the ball it was barely offside..but it wasnt it was a opponent, very bad refereeing.

So the 1st 2 games have some horrible ref calls

I hope every game isn't like that.

Whew at least they won, I won't complain about it after seeing yesterday how bad the ref calls turned out for Croatia, I'm hoping the race to advance doesn't come down to tiebreakers.