Brazil manager Luiz Felipe Scolari dismissed suggestions of Fifa being biased to his side, amid claims that the hosts' were intentionally given a late kick-off against Cameroon on Monday night so that they would get to choose their Last Sixteen opponents.
As the teams from Group A and Group B are scheduled to play against each other in the round of sixteen, Brazil, who will be completing in their final game against Cameroon four hours before the Netherlands and Chile clash, have an advantage of knowing which team they will be playing in the round of sixteen.
This is because Brazil, who only need a draw to secure qualification (as runners up) to the last sixteen, will know beforehand whether topping the group or finishing second would secure them a date with Netherlands or Chile.
This notion appeared to have angered Netherlands boss Louis van Gaal as he accused Fifa of favouring Brazil by playing "tricks."
"I am just assuming that Brazil do their sporting duty. Why on earth are they [Fifa] doing that? That is the question," said Van Gaal. "Fifa plays these tricks. It's not a good thing. It's not fair play. I think at a World Cup the host country always has an advantage."
"If I were allowed to choose, I'd rather not play against Brazil, although Croatia or Mexico aren't bad opponents either. I can well imagine that Brazil doesn't want to face Holland. We have scored a lot of goals. True. And we have we scored fantastic goals. True as well," he added.
However, Scolari, who was also angered by van Gaal's comments, dismissed claims that Brazil's performance against Cameroon would be influenced by the outcome of the Netherlands-Chile fixture.
"Some people expressed a view that we were going to choose who we were going to play. Those sorts of comments are either stupid or ill-intentioned, I repeat stupid or ill-intentioned," said Scolari, who won the World Cup with Brazil in 2002.
"We have to play to qualify, not pick and choose our opponents. It was FIFA who chose the kick-off time. You are putting emphasis on somebody who is talking nonsense. When people say Brazil can choose their opponents, they put us in a very difficult situation, it's disrespectful towards Cameroon and I don't like it. I don't have to choose my opponent, I have to play and win."
