(CNN Spanish) — Costa Rica qualified for its sixth World Cup after beating New Zealand 1-0 in the playoffs. The Tico team got the last quota for Qatar 2022 and added another Latin American contribution to the world Cup. He is the fourth classified in Concacaf.
Joel Campbell, Rayados de Monterrey player and idol of the team, scored after 3 minutes of play.
New Zealand had a VAR disallowed in the 39th minute for a pre-goal foul.
???????? Campbell’s goal in Costa Rica – New Zealand.
The Ticos win 1-0 after the first 45′ and, for now, they are the last qualified for the World Cup. pic.twitter.com/iY8HZwuTY5
— False Nine ????????️ (@falsonueve_f9) June 14, 2022
Costa Rica will play in Group E along with Spain, Germany and Japan, in what is perhaps the group of death in the World Cup.
The team led by the Colombian Luis Fernando Suárez has in Keylor Navas a benchmark and a leader but arrives at the World Cup with low goalscoring production in the qualifiers.
Costa Rica is currently in 31st place in the FIFA rankings, below teams that did not qualify, such as Chile, Peru and Colombia. New Zealand, meanwhile, is ranked 101.
Costa Rica’s participation in World Cups
It is his sixth qualification for a World Cup, third in a row.
Costa Rica participated for the first time in a World Cup in Italia 1990, in which they qualified for the round of 16 and were eliminated by Czechoslovakia.
He then classified South Korea and Japan 2002. They were eliminated in the group stage, finishing third behind Brazil and Turkey.
In Germany 2006 it was last, without points, in the group in which Germany and Ecuador qualified.
He returned to the World Cup Brazil 2014, his best participation so far. They were leaders in a very difficult group: Uruguay was second and Italy and England were eliminated. In the round of 16 they beat Greece on penalties and went out in the quarterfinals after losing on penalties against the Netherlands.
In Russia 2018 Costa Rica was again in the group of Brazil, and was last with a point behind the Brazilians, Switzerland and Serbia.
Now he’s looking to improve on that historic turnout after eight years. From the legendary team of 2014, the aforementioned Navas and Campbell continue in the selected team, as well as Óscar Duarte and Celso Borges.