We’ll Leave It There So: World Cup kick-off, Schmidt's eight changes and all today’s sports

There was also football success for the Dubs, fines for Cavan and Clare, as well as all the news from Brazil.

NEED TO CATCH up? TheScore.ie brings you a round-up of today’s sports news…

Soccer - FIFA World Cup 2014 - Group A - Brazil v Croatia - Arena Corinthians It's finally here; the World Cup begins with Brazil v Croatia. EMPICS Sport EMPICS Sport

World Cup

There’s a Louth man involved in Croatia‘s backroom team for tonight’s opener against Brazil (9pm kick-off).
GAA stars like Bernard Brogan, David Breen, Sean Kavanagh and Paudie O’Sullivan gave us their World Cup predictions.
We set out five reasons why hosts Brazil are going to win this competition.
The latest in our series of World Cup cult classic teams took us back to 1998 and the Davor Suker-inspired Croatia.
Lionel Messi looked relaxed as Argentina prepared for their clash with Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Home

There was another football success for the Dubs, with Conor McHugh named as the best U21 footballer in the country.
Ireland coach Joe Schmidt made eight changes to his team ahead of the second Test against Argentina.
There’s no sign of Podge Collins in the Clare football team, but brother Sean has been released.
Cavan and Armagh were slapped with €5,000 fines for their ugly parade brawl last weekend.
Three Irishmen signed on to play Premiership rugby with London Welsh next season.

Away

Cesc Fabregas‘ much-rumoured transfer from Barcelona to Chelsea was signed and sealed.
England made the decision to switch Manu Tuilagi onto the wing for their second Test with New Zealand.
The IRB say they want rugby union’s top stars to get involved in sevens ahead of the Rio Olympics.
The US Open is in play and Rory McIlroy reckons it will be a test of patience.

The best thing we shared

More gold from the Rugby HQ lads, and we were delighted to see the Irish fans included in this memorable compilation.

FOX SPORTS AUSTRALIA / YouTube

Where we were today

Our man in Brazil, Mikey Stafford, picked up his media pass and ticket for tomorrow night’s exciting Group B clash. We’re not jealous at all! Check out Mikey’s latest column from Salvador.

Mikey Stafford Mikey Stafford

On the record

I think we knew ourselves. We knew we hadn’t performed; we didn’t hurl well. It was Ger’s comments and fair enough – but we knew we hadn’t hurled ourselves and given a performance that we expected to do.”

Dublin’s Johnny McCaffrey on the performance that Ger Louchnane labelled as ‘pure constipated hurling’.

Showbiz, baby

This was a classy touch from Rickie Fowler as he honoured Payne Stewart at the US Open.

Rickie Fowler honoring Payne Stewart with the gear pic.twitter.com/m7FiuOJ6ci
— Kevin Negandhi (@KevinNegandhi) June 12, 2014

Kevin Negandhi / Twitter

The fixture list

The World Cup continues tomorrow with Mexico v Cameroon (5pm), Spain v Holland (8pm) and Chile v Australia (11pm).
There’s the second round of the US Open at Pinehurst.
Emerging Ireland are in action in the IRB Nations Cup as they face Russia in Bucharest (2pm).

This is anarchy!

Billo