In the last round of fierce battle, Japan saved the day, reversing the four-star Germany, but lost to Costa Rica by 0-1, an unassuming Central American country that once again attracted the attention of the nation. That 2:0 Costa Rica victory is still unforgettable for fans.
Geographically, Costa Rica is sandwiched between Nicaragua and Panama, with a land area of only 51,000 square kilometers and a population of only 5.2 million. Compared with the big countries in North America, it is just a tiny country. However, in this small country, but gave birth to North America's real soccer powerhouse. If Mexico is compared to the North American soccer Liu Bei, the United States is Guan Yu, then Costa Rica is undoubtedly Zhang Fei.
Our soccer world is known as "Koreaphobia", while Costa Rica is a typical "Mexicophobia", which has long been suppressed by Mexico.
After a long wait, Costa Rican soccer finally saw the light of day in the 1990 World Cup qualifiers in Italy. They were awarded a ticket to Italy, in a group with Brazil, Scotland and Sweden.
Costa Rica has a legendary coach, Milutinovic, known in the jungle as Milu. He took over the national team a month before the World Cup, when outsiders didn't think much of him. However, he led the team to a 1-0 win over Scotland, a 0-1 loss to Brazil, and a 2-1 win over Sweden in the World Cup, and managed to advance to the round of 16. Despite losing 1-4 to Czechoslovakia, who had Skuravi, in the last eight, Costa Rica's performance was still impressive.
In 1994, Costa Rica missed two consecutive World Cups and didn't make another appearance until the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan.
Prior to the match, public opinion was generally in favour of our soccer team losing to Brazil, drawing with Turkey and beating Costa Rica to reach the round of 16. However, this prediction seems too naive today. Brazil naturally couldn't compete, Turkey was unknown at the time and could barely manage a draw, and Costa Rica? Most people knew nothing about it. I had no hesitation in tipping them to win the three points.
How did it turn out? 0:2, our soccer team opened the door to black and suffered a crushing defeat to Costa Rica. And Milo, who led Costa Rica to the last 16 of the 1990 World Cup, was also the coach of our soccer team. Despite Milo's talent, a smart woman doesn't cook, and the rice goes bad. That national soccer team may have been the strongest in history, but Costa Rica was more powerful. They and Turkey beat our soccer team by 1:1 and 2:5.
Figure - San José Airport
The 2014 World Cup in Brazil was one of the greatest pages for Costa Rican soccer. They were placed in a group with powerhouses such as four-star Italy, four-star Uruguay (two-time World Cup winners and two-time Olympic soccer champions before the World Cup), and one-star England. Many thought Costa Rica would be outscored, however, they topped their group with a 3-1 win over Uruguay, a 1-0 win over Italy, and a 0-0 draw with England. Costa Rica beat Greece on penalties in the one-eighth final, but lost on penalties to the Netherlands in the quarterfinals. Costa Rica faced titanic opponents, Ukraine, Italy, England, the Netherlands and Greece. Greece was the winner of Euro 2004.
Some people think Costa Rica beat Japan because they beat us and had inexplicable confidence in East Asian teams to play freely. It could be argued that they are addicted to playing against East Asian teams. It is estimated that the reason Japan looks down on Costa Rica is because Spain beat them 7-0.
