World Cup Brazil 2014 / Weltmeisterschaft Brasilien

[El Gordo]

Hard to disagree with any of that.

The least exciting game I've seen so far might have been the opener, in which a nervous Brazil could have come a cropper against a much stronger Croatian side than we'd been led to believe were appearing this time. The deeply dodgy penalty filled me with dread about the errors to come, though mercifully these haven't been too numerous so far. (Though I would mention a couple of baffling decisions to deprive Meh-ico of a 2-0 half time lead against Cameroon.) A tweet by David Baddiel summed it up: "This ref is such a Homer he could have written the fucking Odyssey".

It's not just Croatia who've surprised us. Costa Rica did a fine job on Uruguay, and I have to salute the Aussies. Most predictions were for them to shrivel up and die but they put up a tremendous fight against Chile. With Spain and NL still to come they are likely to end up pointless, but it won't be for the lack of effort or national pride. Would love to see them take Spain down, just for the comedy-shock value, though honest, I've nothing against Spain.

Talking of which, game of the tournament so far, beyond doubt, was Holland's annihilation of Spain. There were several predictions pre-tournament that we might have seen the end of tiki-taka football, which frankly I would rejoice at. I don't suppose the Spaniards will take this result, nor this prediction, lying down, and we should expect them to reinflate themselves for the Chile game on Wednesday. But many of us are revising our predictions of who are likely to make it to the semis.

But how good were Holland? Actually, that's a serious question as I'm not sure to what extent we were seeing a Dutch renaissance, rather than a Spanish decline. But even if they failed to win another point and had to go home early, I suspect many would feel they'd had a good tournament after this result. As soon as the Van Persie header looped over the line, I wondered how many more times I was destined to see that goal before the great final whistle of life is blown.

And England? While the result was a disappointment it was heartening to see them look purposeful and keen to attack their opponents. They generally take the advice given to the novice marathon runner -- start slow and get slower. Traditionally, their first 2 games are total write-offs as entertainment, but last night they had a right go, and could even have won the match if a few more shots had been on target. (I just saw on Swiss TV that the cause of the almighty splash in Lake Zurich this morning has been identified as the ball from Wayne Rooney's corner.)

Felt a bit sorry for Rooney. Clearly a valuable player for the team but one who is struggling to fit a formation in which Sterling is occupying his natural slot. I like @sweder's idea of Rooney coming off the bench to torment a tiring defence.

Switzerland on as I write, and currently 1-0 down to Ecuador. A couple of Swiss guys at work have allowed the FIFA ranking (which, astonishingly, gave them a group to lead at the tournament), to go their heads. They've been a bit full of it, making over-confident, po-faced predictions like "We should definitely get to the quarter finals, and we'll see how we go from there". I don't know how to break this to you chaps, but...

But overall, a good start.