It is known that Mexico is the toughest soccer team in the CONCACAF region, especially when playing in their stadium, and they did well by defending their territory this Friday when they faced La Sele, Costa Rica’s national soccer team in one of the elimination matches of the hex stage in route to the World Cup Russia 2018.

Things started out tough for Costa Rica, the first goal came early, when Mexican Javier “Chicharito” Hernández opened the score at minute 6, an error in the defense made it impossible for Navas to stop the ball. With this point, Chicharito scored his goal number 46 with Mexico’s national team matching the record set by Francisco Borgetti as the top scorer for El Tri.

Losing 1-0 Costa Rica continued to look for opportunities to even the score, La Sele showed speed and aggressiveness, but the lack of team work caused a few good shots to be lost. A superior Mexico dominated the first half and the second goal for El Tri by Nestor Araujo came at minute 44, the ball got past goalkeeper Keylor Navas in a very strange and painful mistake.

The second half came around, Costa Rica’s head coach Oscar Ramírez, made the first change in the lineup, out went Christian Bolaños giving a chance to Joel Campbell, and soon after, in the Mexican team Raul Jimenez came in to replace Chicharito who was complaining of pain in his right leg.

Costa Rica’s level of game fell during the second half, lacking structure and a game plan; Mexico continued to dominate, the second change in La Sele’s lineup came at minute 60, Randall Azofeifa left the field and David Guzmán joined the team and the last change involved Marco Ureña replacing Johan Venegas.

The mistakes in the defense continued, La Sele suffered, Navas had a few good interventions.

The game came to an end with no further goals and a final score in favor of Mexico 2-0.

Costa Rica will need to regroup to face Honduras next March 28th.