Photo Credit: TeleticaDeportes7/Facebook
The male national soccer teams of Costa Rica and Trinidad & Tobago, came face to face this Tuesday, June 13, at the Costa Rica National Stadium as part of the Russia 2018 World Cup Qualifiers; Costa Rica did not have a great performance but was able to add valuable points with a win at home 2-1.

Costa Rica opened up the score early in the match before the first minute, with a corner by Joel Campbell straight to the head of Francisco Calvo and surprised the Trinidad & Tobago goalkeeper.

“La Sele” continued with an aggressive game hoping to secure the advantage, they created a couple of possibilities to score but the second goal didn’t come for Costa Rica; Kendall Waston was injured and had to leave the game, this created problems in Costa Rica’s defense.

27 minutes into the game Trinidad was attacking, a mistake in the defensive line almost opened the score for Trinidad, but Keylor Navas had a brilliant intervention, and then another, and another.

The public at the stadium fell silent, as a result of another error by the defense, particularly Johnny Acosta, at minute 34 Kevin Molino scored for Trinidad & Tobago, Navas was close but not able to save it.

With just one minute left to go in the first half, Costa Rica’s captain, Bryan Ruiz, scored for Costa Rica un a beautiful individual play.

The second half of the game developed at a different pace, with some players specially from “La Sele” showing signs of exhaustion, Costa Rica had a more defensive game for most of the second half, once head coach Oscar Ramírez made the change from Venegas to David Guzmán the team showed more structure and order.

Trinidad & Tobago gave a good battle, was able to take possession of the ball, they were superior to Costa Rica at many points during the game, unfortunately for them they found Navas defending the arch.

Towards the end of the game Costa Rica had several opportunities to score, but the attackers failed over and over again. The game concluded with a 2-1 in favor of Costa Rica that consolidated its second position in the CONCACAF group.

Panama and Honduras tied 2-2 in Panama this Tuesday, while the USMNT and Mexico also played to a draw 1-1 on Sunday. With these results the CONCACAF positions are:

Mexico        14
Costa Rica  11
U.S.A.          8
Panama       7
Honduras    5
Trinidad      3