Japan reversed Germany's four-star in the last round and lost 0-1 to Costa Rica, a small Central American country that once again came into the limelight of the Chinese. Costa Rica's 2:0 national soccer team is still memorable.
Sandwiched between Nicaragua and Panama, Costa Rica covers an area of 51,000 square kilometers and has a population of just over 5.2 million. Regionally, Costa Rica is a coterie compared to the United States, Canada and Mexico, as well as to medium-sized countries such as Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. For a small country, Costa Rica is a real soccer powerhouse in North America. If Mexico is the owner of North American soccer, Liu Bei, then the United States is the second master, Guan Yu, and Costa Rica is arguably the third master, Zhang Fei.
If the national soccer team has "Koreaphobia", Costa Rica is a typical "Mexicaphobia", which is suppressed by Mexico.
After countless winters, Costa Rican soccer finally sprang to life in the 1990 World Cup qualifiers in Italy. Costa Rica received a ticket to Italy, separated from Brazil, Scotland and Sweden.
Costa Rica has a fantastic coach, Milutinovic, who will be married to the national soccer team in the future and is known in the jungle as Milo. Milo took over as Costa Rica's head coach a month before the World Cup and not many people were optimistic about him at the time. The results were surprising. Costa Rica beat Scotland 1-0, Brazil 0-1, and Sweden 2-1 to enter the top 16 with their heads held high. Although Costa Rica lost 1-4 to Czechoslovakia, who had Skuravi, in the one-eighth final, many could not make the top 16.
In 1994, Costa Rica missed two consecutive World Cups until the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan.
The Chinese were impressed by Costa Rica, a pre-match public opinion analysis that said the national soccer team lost to Brazil, drew with Turkey, beat Costa Rica and finished in the top 16. It seems naive now. A lot of people thought so at the time. Of course Brazil couldn't make the tournament. Turkey wasn't known and should have gotten a draw. Costa Rica? I hadn't heard of it. I hung three points straight away.
San José, capital of Costa Rica
What was the result? 0:2, the national soccer team opened the door to the black and was taught a hard lesson by Costa Rica. The head coach of the national soccer team is Milo, who led Costa Rica to the top 16 of the 1990 World Cup. No matter how amazing Milo is, it's hard for a smart woman to cook without rice. That national soccer team may have been the strongest in history, but Costa Rica was stronger. Costa Rica and Turkey beat the national soccer team by scores of 1:1 and 2:5.
Figure - San José Airport
The 2014 World Cup in Brazil was one of the greatest pages in Costa Rican soccer history. With Costa Rica and four-star Italy, four-star Uruguay (two-time World Cup champions and two-time Olympic soccer champions prior to the World Cup), and one-star England, many thought Costa Rica would be beaten by a wide margin. As it turned out, he beat Uruguay 3-1, Italy 1-0, and drew with England 0-0 and topped the group. Costa Rica beat Greece on penalties in the eighth-finals and lost to the Netherlands on penalties in the quarterfinals. The five opponents Costa Rica met, Ukraine, Italy, England and the Netherlands were giants. Greece was the winner of Euro 2004.
Some people think Costa Rica beat Japan because they beat us and have inexplicable confidence in East Asian teams so they can play freely. It's safe to say 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 Costa Rica 7-0.
