A young Costa Rican team confirmed its great moment on Wednesday by defeating the United States 2-0 with goals from Juan Pablo Vargas, a player of Millonarios FC, and Anthony Contreras, with whom they confirm their move to the playoff against New Zealand in which they will play a ticket to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
With this result on the final day of the Concacaf octagonal, the United States (25 points) joins Canada (28) and Mexico (28) as the three Concacaf teams that directly qualify for the World Cup, while Costa Rica (25) closed in the fourth place leading to the playoff.
Costa Rica, which has never lost at home to the United States in history, still had a mathematical chance of winning the direct ticket to the Qatar World Cup, but it had to score a historic 6-0 win to move the Americans from third place.
Costa Rica's Colombian coach Luis Fernando Suárez reserved 8 players who had a yellow card and who would miss the playoff against New Zealand if they received another one, including defender Francisco Calvo, midfielders Bryan Ruiz and Celso Borges, and attacker Joel Campbell, who make up the backbone of the team.
For this reason, the coach lined up a very young 23-year-old team in which he highlighted the debut of 18-year-old midfielder Brandon Aguilera, who led the game and with two long-distance shots he generated the two clearest chances in the first half for the locals.
Even so, the Central American team sought the feat and signed a great victory to close the tie winning 19 of the last 21 points.
Goalkeeper Keylor Navas, one of the few regular stars who played this Wednesday, demonstrated his conditions and signed two big saves in the first half against shots from Musah and Pepi.
Costa Rica coach Luis Fernando Suarez declared himself “proud” of his players on Wednesday after the 2-0 victory against the United States and said he is already thinking about next June's playoff against a “very good team” from New Zealand.
“I am more than calm and proud of them (the players),” Suarez said at the press conference following the match against the United States on the final day of the Octagonal Concacaf heading to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
After a poor first round in which Costa Rica only won 6 points in 7 games, the team signed a dream runoff and won 19 of the last 21 points and only gave up a draw on their visit to Mexico at Estadio Azteca.
Suarez praised the characteristics of New Zealand and assured that the single-party play-off will be very difficult and must be prepared in the best way:
Suárez stressed that Costa Rica “has a very interesting arsenal of players” and that “there is enough level to dream.”
The coach acknowledged that “we will always have to make progress and do things better” and stressed the importance of the collaboration of the local league clubs in the transfer of players to close the tie in the first places and to face the repechage.
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*With information from EFE
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