As Whitesnake almost sang: here we go again, on our own.

Last night the 2014 World Cup kicked off with hosts Brazil controversially beating Croatia 3-1. Today, the circus rolls on.

We’ll be here til we have to go for our tea (fish fingers and spaghetti shapes) at 7pm. In the meantime, this is the place to talk football, punditry, protests and more.

Let’s World Cup.

It’s lashing down in Natal as Mexico and Cameroon kick off in the other game in Brazil’s group. Who’d you fancy there?

Chicharito doesn’t make it, United fans.

Okay, let’s discuss the big news of the past 24 hours: Eamon Dunphy’s vow/threat to wear a dress on telly if England get to the quarter-finals.

Commenter Brian Farren sums it up: “Would rather see England win the world cup then Dunphy in a dress. #feel ill”

Controversial use of a hashtag there though.

Mexico have just had a goal disallowed – wrongly, if you ask me — in the early game.

This World Cup is going to be remembered for Junior B-type officiating isn’t it?

What did you make of the new electronic board that the fourth official was flashing around the place last night?

I sat bolt upright in bed hours later and shouted: ‘It was a watch!’

Commenter Shane Russell asks:

“‘Eto, whose official age is 33 but one cannot be too sure with this African players. They don’t have the same infrastructure as we expect in the west’. Did the RTE commentator actually say that or did I hear that wrong?!?”

I didn’t catch that. Anyone?

Samuel Eto’o has still got it, baby. The Cameroon talisman has just hot the post and the African side are settled into this now after a ropey start.

The Chelsea striker took centre stage before kick-off too, standing in the middle of a squad huddle and giving a temple-tapping team talk, which would be a good name for a band.

Jim Beglin and Stephen Alkin are the commentary team on duty in what will be considered an off-Broadway production at the moment on RTÉ. There’s a repeat of the last World Cup final to come, remember.

On ITV before kick-off, Adrian Chiles, showed us this drawing that Patrick Vieira and Fabio Cannavaro produced during one of the breaks.

“This is what will happen in the game,” we were told.

Dos Santos again had the ball in the net and again it’s been ruled out by a linesman. This is ludicrous.

Richard Keys and Andy Gray are in Doha while the rest of the football world is focused on Brazil. But they still reckon we care what they’re up to.

Today, the former Sky Sports double act reach peak Partridge in their latest video blog; let’s all watch Gray have his breakfast.

Entering the fan zone in the historic town centre last night my girlfriend noted that every male was scanned with a metal detector on his way into the square and the heavy police presence on every corner was hard to avoid.

The only time people stopped cheering at the big screen was to shout abuse at the serious-looking helicopters passing overhead. In São Paulo even a good portion of the lucky 62,000 at the opening game were chanting abuse at Rousseff.

Our man in Brazil, Mikey Stafford, on the feeling amongst the locals. He’ll be at Spain-Holland for us later.

People are not impressed with the officiating…

Mexico have just been denied a penalty shout too.

Interesting news from the the AFP newswire just now:

German legend Franz Beckenbauer has been banned from taking part in any football-related activity, at any level, for 90 days, FIFA announced on Friday. Beckenbauer was deemed guilty of a breach of the FIFA code of ethics.

The apparent breach relates to Beckenbauer’s failure to cooperate with an Ethics Committee investigation despite repeated requests for his assistance, FIFA said. He is reported to have ignored requests to provide information in an interview or in response to written questions.

Here are some of those dodgy calls. It’s half-time now: 0-0.

Unprecedented: Liam Brady has ‘revised his prediction’ and is now aborad the Mexican bandwagon. Climb up there with us, Liamo.

A penguin called Aochan tries to predict as a draw for the result of the Group C World Cup soccer match between Japan and Ivory Coast, at Epson Shinagawa Aqua Stadium in Tokyo today. Eugene Hoshiko Eugene Hoshiko

Our own Ben Blake was at England’s impressive centre of excellence, St George’s Park today to play in a media competition.

We’ve found his hair twin:

The Irish men’s team were beaten in the semis by the eventual winners. But they’ll win the party, to paraphrase Roy Keane.

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On board with this.

GOAL! Mexico — and Peralta — finally score a goal that counts. 1-0 after an hour.

Quick poll: I’ll watch this tournament on:

“In 1995, Eric Cantona discussed his admiration for Diego Armando Maradona.

‘In the course of time, it will be said that Maradona was to football what Rimbaud was to poetry and Mozart to music’.

It was an interesting comparison. All three were complex, contradictory figures. Rimbaud, the angry, rebellious teenager who furiously wrote his best works between the ages of sixteen and twenty, would eventually turn his back on poetry and his attacks on the powerful and go on to amass a tidy fortune in colonial Africa instead. Mozart, creator of such divine music, something wondrous and beautiful, lacked basic social skills and bemused many with his wild tomfoolery. As for Maradona, his genius was undone by an unquenchable thirst for self-destruction that came to a head on June 30th 1994.”

Boom. Rimbaud and that. We’re sophisticated.

Read Eoin O’Callaghan‘s piece on Diego Maradona here and USA ’94 here.

Like last night, the directors have treated us to a Hawkeye-type graphic even though the ball was in no way, borderline. FIFA haven’t asked them to do that right?

Louis an Gaal has just handed us his team-sheet. Nice one, LVG.

Cillessen; Janmaat, Vlaar, de Vrij, Martins Indi, Blind; de Jong, de Guzmán, Sneijder; Robben, van Persie.

Last night Eamon Dunphy said David Luiz would be ‘a liability’ in the League of Ireland, which the rest of the panel found hilarious.

There’s a busy schedule in the league this evening meanwhile, and the Brazil defender has confirmed his megabucks move to PSG. 

It’s all over in the early game and despite a late howler of a miss from Chicarito, Mexico have held on for the win.

What did you make of that then?

Get yourself dried off, son.

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Right that’s your lot.

Mikey Stafford is our man in Salvador tonight. We’ll liveblog the next two games and will have reaction and analysis to keep you going.

Tomorrow, if you’ve any questions for Mikey, do get in contact; he’ll host our late afternoon hangout.

On Monday we’ll have a brand spanking new phone to give away thanks to our friends at Budweiser and on Tuesday, we have a former world champion joining the conversation. ‘Citing!