The Ahmed Bin Ali stadium erupted for two reasons when Keysher Fuller’s 14-yard strike proved too high for goalkeeper Shuichi Gonda. Those from Costa Rica were delighted to see not only the winner but their country’s first shot on goal for Qatar 2022 after Luis Fernando Suarez’s side slotted home the equaliser. 7-0 defeat of Spain.
This means Group E is wide open because Germany will go into Sunday’s match against Spain as the only country without points, yet this result is a definite boost for them as they face Spain. Costa Rica the last.
For the goal, Japan’s first offender was Hidemasa Morita, handing the ball to Yeltsin Tejeda, who found Fuller – although Gonda was the second samurai blue to blame for being flat-footed. in a late wave Japan He applied for a penalty on Brian Oviedo’s handball after Daichi Kamada’s shot but to no avail.
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Suarez said the content: “We are alive, that’s the main thing. No one can say we’re out yet – we can still dream. It’s not about tactics, it’s about emotion; the more pressure we have the more we prove ourselves. We were dead yesterday – Now we are alive.”
Hajime Moriyasu’s team has to regroup after them Seismic victory over Germany The coach was asked if his team might shock the World Cup again by beating Spain. “We’re going to win,” he said. “We beat Germany but that doesn’t mean we can beat Spain. Those countries are World Cup winners, so we have a lot of respect for them. But we won a game against Germany. It’s going to be tough for Spain but we have a good chance of winning. So we’ll prepare and go into the match with confidence.” next.
“It will be a very difficult match for Spain. We just need to increase the odds of winning for Japan. That’s the tactics I decided [for today]. The result didn’t work but we tried and I think that’s what Japan needs.”
His strategy was the same as against Germany – wait to hit Costa Rica with quick breaks. The problem was that this was also a Costa Rican tactic, and thus a static relationship emerged after false dawn when Morita and Yuki Soma claimed an early corner kick between them. Swinging the latter, Ayase Ueda missed a header and a shaken Costa Rica escaped.
More encouraging for Costa Rica was Joel Campbell’s 120-cap rush that earned a free-kick, although Celso Borges’s delivery was from the air by Gonda, Japan’s player in the match against Germany.
And Japan gave Costa Rica another scare when Ritsu Doan, who was assisted by the equalizer against Germany at the start, fired the ball past Keylor Navas but no team mates turned up.
From here, quality was consistent against midfield, as evidenced by the 0-0 number of shots on goal at the interval, with neither side able to seize the lead. When Francisco Calvo and Campbell took aim, it was a flaccid effort, so it fell into the “little mercy” section that there was only a minute added by the referee, Michael Oliver, to the opening 45.
In the second half, Moriyasu decided that Yuto Nagatomo and Ueda had contributed enough, and held them off Hiroki Ito and Takuma Asano, the latter the memorable winning scorer who knocked Germany down.
Twenty-seven seconds after Navas made an actual shot save: Morita was the player who finally found the goal and it was memorialized for how good Japan was after the first half against the four-time world champions.
The manner of Campbell’s dribbling, with which he engineered a route out of direct contact with little pressure on him, suggested that his nation might never be better. The former Arsenal striker’s next entry on the competition’s record was with a diagonal free kick from 40 yards, and when Wataru Endo was fouled, Soma did the same from the edge of the Costa Rica area.
Moments later, in a near-identical spot, Calvo grabbed Junya Eto’o, as a substitute, and this time Kamada was extravagant, hitting the set piece into the wall.
Next came Fuller’s decisive tackle. This, really, was no match to remember but the arrangement means that each of the last two matches will be televised live, which could allow for a thrilling finish.