"At the World Cup, it's important to start with a win because it breeds confidence," Parreira told a press conference after Brazil's 1-0 win over Croatia in their Group H match.

"It was an exceptional result for the first match," Parreira insisted.

Parreira, who guided Brazil to the 1994 World Cup title, said that the better is yet to come.

"If you play your best at the start, then there's no room for improvement," he said. "We're thinking big, we intend to play seven games here and we want to go better as we go on."

Brazil's players were kept at arm's length by their Croatian opponents throughout the game, and if it was not for goalkeeper Dida's heroics and Kaka's 42nd minute goal, the Seleção may have been embarrassed.

"Croatia are a good team and they are having a good run of form. They play at a decent tempo, and they didn’t give our players any time on the ball.

"We found it difficult to get through them because they got tight to our midfielders," the veteran coach admitted.

Croatia coach Zlatko Kranjcar refuted claims that Brazil were not playing at their best and insisted his players got the best of their opponents.

"I don’t think the Brazilians played in second gear. I wasn’t expecting more from them; we got to grips with them and didn’t let them play," Kranjcar told reporters.

Kranjcar was adamant that his team played better than Brazil and that they "didn't deserve to lose".

"For a good part of the game we were the better team," he said. "We’ve shown tonight that we’re more than capable of going further in the tournament."