Brazil deserved to lose

Well, that didn't take long.

The first upset at the FIFA U-20 World Cup came on the opening day of the tournament - and in the opening match - as Poland stunned four-time world champions Brazil 1-0 in Montreal Saturday.

Fiery, South American flair was no match for cold, Eastern European ingenuity. Samba soccer bested by Polish power!

Going into the contest, all eyes were focused on Alexandre Pato, the 17-year old forward that clubs such as AC Milan and Chelsea are already queuing up to sign to a big-money deal.

Instead, we should have paid more attention to Polish defender Grzegorz Krychowiak, who scored the game's only goal on an absolutely gorgeous free kick from 25 yards out in the 23rd minute.

Talk about starting the tournament with a bang!

Much has been made about the way Poland won the game - the Poles essentially put everybody they had behind the ball to defend the lead after Krzysztof Krol was sent off in the 27th minute when he picked up his second yellow card.

It wasn't pretty, but it was effective.

What's more, despite Brazil dictating the pace of the game, Poland clearly deserved to win.

The Poles came in for a bit of criticism after the game for defending the way they did, but when you're playing a man short against Brazil, you have to know that teams will not take many chances going forward and will tighten up defensively.

It would have been foolish of Poland to press forward despite their numerical disadvantage. The only tactical choice they could have made was to play defensive, counter-attacking soccer - which is exactly what they did.

Brazil enjoyed a staggering 63 per cent of possession and out-shot Poland 14-2, but statistics don't always tell the full story.

True, Brazil dominated possession, but it rarely did anything useful with it. And yes, Brazil fired plenty of shots on net, but Polish goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski didn't have to make a difficult save all afternoon.

Pato valiantly tried to create chances, but he was routinely swarmed by defenders whenever he inched towards the 18-yard box. When he did have a scoring opportunity, he squandered it, blasting shots wide of the net.

You also had a sense from watching the game that Brazil underestimated Poland - that the South Americans appeared to think that all they had to do was just show up to win the game.

While else would coach Nelson Rodrigues not start talented fullback Marcelo? And why would he wait until the 66th minute to substitute the Real Madrid star into the game?

As soon as he stepped on the field, Marcelo made things happen, giving the Brazilian attack more width with his rampaging runs down the wings. How Brazil could have used him from the start of the game, but I guess Rodrigues thought he didn't need the speedy youngster and would rest him.

A gross miscalculation, as it turned out.