Furious Croatia coach Niko Kovac blamed “out of his depth” referee Yuichi Nishimura and warned the World Cup could turn into a circus after a contentious penalty decision effectively cost his team the opening game of the tournament against Brazil.
Japanese ref Nishimura ruled that Croatia’s Dejan Lovren had fouled Fred when the Brazilian fell to the floor with 20 minutes remaining and the score at 1-1. Neymar converted the penalty for his second goal of the game and they went on to win 3-1 in Thursday’s Group A match.
“This was ridiculous today, and if we continue in this way we will have a circus,” Kovac told a news conference dominated by questions about the penalty.
“If that’s a penalty, we don’t need to play football anymore. Let’s play basketball instead. The lads played their hearts out but that was outright thuggery by a referee who was just out of his depth for a game of this magnitude.”
