How Costa Rica Shocked the World at the 2014 World Cup

Written by Lachlan Sherriff

One of the greatest parts of the World Cup is seeing underdog teams go far, or as they are known in the world of football, dark horses. Some of the greatest dark horses in modern World Cup history include the 2018 Croatia side, which defeated Argentina and England on its way to the final, and the Ghana team of 2010, who were inches away from becoming the first African team to qualify for the semi-finals of the World Cup. But there’s one World Cup team that beat all expectations, but doesn't quite get the same amount of credit. That was the 2014 Costa Rica team, which made the quarter finals of the World Cup. And while that’s impressive on its own, what the Los Ticos team had to overcome on the way to the quarter finals makes their achievement incredible. This is the story of how Costa Rica shocked the world at the 2014 World Cup.

Costa Rica started their journey in the CONCACAF qualifiers. The CONCACAF qualifiers have four rounds, but being one of the top six CONCACAF teams in FIFA’s rankings got Los Ticos automatic qualification to the third round. The third round qualification has three groups of four teams, one from the top three CONCACAF FIFA rankings, one from the teams in 4-6, and two from the teams qualifying from the second round, with the best two teams from each group advancing to the final round. Being ranked 53 worldwide, Costa Rica were the fifth best team in CONCACAF, and were drawn to Mexico, who were 27th in the world, along with El Salvador and Guyana. Costa Rica’s first opponent in their qualifiers was against El Salvador at home. They had their dream start, with Álvaro Saborío scoring in the tenth minute, and Joel Campbell scoring five minutes later. But despite going down 2-0, El Salvador would recover and score two of their own. The final score was 2-2 and the home fans had to watch their team throw away a 2-0 lead. Four days later, Soborio would score a hat trick in a 4-0 win against Guyana, but Costa Rica were yet to play the strongest team in the group in Mexico, who had won their first two games and were top of the group. In the September international window, the fixturing had scheduled Costa Rica’s two matches against Mexico in a space of four days. In the first of the two games, Costa Rica hosted the Mexicans in front of 32,500 Ticos fans. Unfortunately, the home fans once again went home disappointed, as Mexico scored twice past Keylor Navas in a 2-0 win. Both teams traveled to Mexico City for their second match in four days, and Mexico once again found a win, with Javier Hernandez scoring the lone goal in a 1-0 win. The only positive for Costa Rica was that El Salvador had dropped two important points to Guyana, ending the international break with El Salvador one point ahead of Costa Rica, with the two teams set to meet each other in a month's time. El Salvador had the home ground advantage, and could book qualification to the final round with a win. Costa Rica weren’t going to officially book qualifying, but could put it in their hands. It was a tense game that was controlled by the defenders, but a Jose Cobero strike gave Costa Rica a 1-0 win. El Salvador still had a chance to qualify, but had to defeat Mexico away, while also relying on Guyana to defeat Los Ticos. Guyana not only couldn’t defeat Los Ticos, they were battered. Randall Brenes and Álvaro Saborío both scored twice as Costa Rica battered a hapless Guyana side 7-0. The win officially put Costa Rica in second place of Group B, and placed them in the Hex.

The Hex is the final round of CONCACAF qualifying. There are six teams, and every team plays each other twice, home and away. The top three teams will automatically qualify for the World Cup, while the fourth placed team will go to the inter confederation playoffs. The other five teams along with Costa Rica in the hex included USA and Mexico, who had both qualified for the past five World Cups and were favoured to go back for a sixth. There was Honduras, who had broken their 28 year World Cup drought in 2010 and were still continuing their golden era, led by Carlos Costa and managed by Luis Suarez. Nope not that one, the Colombian one. Panama were also in the hex, who were entering their own golden era, but weren’t quite at the same spot Honduras were, though still a threat. And Jamaica were the sixth team, but they weren’t that good. Costa Rica had their first match against Panama away.

It didn’t start well.

Luiz Henriquez got things under away for Panama with a strike in the 15th minute. Twelve minutes later, Roman Torres put the ball in the top corner from close range, and made it 2-0 Panama. But Costa Rica weren’t giving up just yet. Álvaro Saborío nailed a header six minutes before half time, and a Bryan Ruiz bicycle kick in the 84th minute would end the match 2-2, a good result for Costa Rica with all things considered. In the March window, Costa Rica had one of their hardest challenges, having to travel to Colorado to play the U.S. And you know what happens in Colorado during March.

Yeah. It snows.

In fact the weather was so bad that the game has its own Wikipedia page, titled Snow Clasico.

Costa Rica is a country that has an average temperature 72 to 82 Fahrenheit, or 22 to 28 Celsius, so they were always up against it. Clint Dempsey scored early and the U.S. never looked back. Costa Rica lost 1-0 and filed a complaint about how the pitch was, stating a four dotpoint letter about how the physical integrity of the players was neglected, the stadium personnel invaded the pitch during the course of the match, the snow covered and concealed the pitch demarcations and the ball could not roll properly because of the thick layer of snow.

Four days later, back in San Jose for their third match against Jamaica, the sold out crowd turned their backs on the FIFA anthem and were chanting “son of a bitch” while the anthem played. But the players seemed to have moved on and beat Jamaica 2-0 to take four points off their first three games. The June international break had three games for Costa Rica, hosting Honduras and Panama while having to travel to Mexico in between. A scrappy goal from Roy Miller Hernandez confirmed a 1-0 win against Honduras. But the big task ahead was an away match against Mexico at the Estadio Azteca. The Azteca can seat 65,000 fans and is a tough away trip for any opponent. But a 0-0 draw was the result that played out between the two teams and to leave the Azteca with a point was certainly a great result for Los Ticos, putting them equal on points with Mexico with a game in hand. That game in hand was then turned into three points as Bryan Ruiz and Celso Borges scored within three minutes with each other as Costa Rica won 2-0 and ended the June window in second place.

The September window had two games, including Costa Rica’s chance at revenge against the USA. USMNT manager Jurgen Klinsmann decided to add fuel to fire by saying before the match "They thought ‘The Snow Game’ shouldn’t have been played, but we feel that we would have won by an even wider margin if there wasn’t snow". The Costa Rican fans took to that by throwing eggs at the U.S. team bus. The Ticos fans wanted this win, and guess what? They got their wish.

Johnny Acosta started the scoring in the third minute with a header, before Celso Borges scored with a header of his own seven minutes later. 2-0 after ten minutes. Clint Dempsey scored a penalty to put some pressure on, but Joel Campbell finished it off in the 76th minute to make it Costa Rica 3, USA 1. Not only did Costa Rica get their revenge, but they had a chance to qualify for the World Cup in their next match. All they had to do was beat a Jamaican team who was yet to win a game. Surprisingly they failed to do that, as Jermaine Anderson scored a 92nd minute equilizer for Jamaica to tie the match 1-1, but Mexico losing and Honduras drawing meant the recent result didn’t even matter. Costa Rica were headed to the World Cup.

The final two games had no significance to Costa Rica anymore, and they ended their qualifying campaign with a 1-0 loss to Honduras and a 2-1 win against Mexico, finishing the hex in second place. None of that mattered anymore, what was important was preparing for the World Cup. In the leadup to the World Cup, Costa Rica played six friendlies. It would certainly be fair to say they didn’t go well. But like the other 31 coaches, Costa Rica’s manager Jorge Luis Pinto had bigger things to worry about than meaningless friendlies, he had to work out what players would be a part of his 23 man squad for the World Cup. Some players wrote themselves into the team, one of them being Keylor Navas. In the year 2022, Navas has three Champions Leagues and has played for both Real Madrid and PSG. He hadn’t done any of that in 2014, but was still a starting goalie for La Liga club Levante, who had finished in a respectable tenth the season prior. Levante only conceded 43 goals in the 13-14 season, the least out of any team not in the top four. There were also two Premier League forwards playing for Costa Rica. Joel Campbell was on the books of Arsenal, while Los Ticos captain Bryan Ruiz played for Fulham. Campbell and Ruiz had both scored goals during the qualifying, and Pinto’s plan was for both of them to contribute some goal scoring threat in the World Cup. Another key player who was called up was Junior Diaz, who was playing weekly in the Bundesliga and was one of the fastest players in the world, who ran a top speed of 33.8 kilometers per hour in the World Cup. The squad was rounded out with players who were key in the qualifiers, including Johnny Acosta, Celso Borges, and Oscar Duarte. While they weren’t on many people’s radar, Costa Rica had a good team. Maybe they could make the quarter finals if they got an easy group?

They then got the group of death. Probably not exactly what they were after.

Costa Rica were placed in what you could argue to be the toughest group of any World Cup, ever. According to the FIFA rankings, Group C had the sixth, ninth, and eleventh best teams all in the same group. Costa Rica were in 28th, and were being doubted by every person making their predictions. But let’s have a closer look at their opponents. For starters, there was England. The England side was in a bit of an awkward period, with most players either being past their prime or were yet to enter it. But still, despite being veterans, Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard had both played 40 times that season, while captain Steven Gerrard fell one short of the fourty game mark. Goalkeeper Joe Hart and just won the league with Man City, and Liverpool duo Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge had looked great together during the prior season, and were now hoping to keep it up playing together in Brazil. There was also Italy, who like England, had a squad filled with veterans, but veterans who knew how to win, as Gianluigi Buffon, Andrea Pirlo, Leonardo Bonnuci and Giorgio Chiellini had all won the Serie A with Juventus the past season despite having a combined age of 127. And finally there was the team who Costa Rica would play first, Uruguay. Uruguay probably had the weakest team out of Costa Rica’s three opponents, but they had Luis Suarez, who had just scored 31 goals in 33 games in the EPL, which at the time was a joint record for most goals in a Premier League season. Along with Suarez, Uruguay rounded out their team with Luis Suarez, Diego Godin, Diego Forlan and Christian Rodriguez. It was certainly not going to be easy, but Costa Rica stayed positive, as Bryan Ruiz came out and said he was confident Costa Rica could hold their own in the World Cup.

Hands up, how many of you believed him?

Costa Rica started their World Cup on the 15th of June with a match in Fortaleza against Uruguay. Pinto had chosen to run a 5-4-1 formation. This gave Junior Diaz and Cristian Gamboa the freedom to use their speed and join the attack, without having to focus on defending as hard as they would in a four back. Joel Campbell was the loan striker, while Bryan Ruiz played behind him as a center midfielder, next to Yeltsin Tejeda.

In the 24th minute Diego Forlan put a free kick into the box and Junior Diaz rugby tackled Diego Lugano. Edinson Cavani converted the penalty and everything was going as expected. No goals were scored for the remaining first half, but Keylor Navas made a great save to get some momentum for the Ticos. It wasn’t until the 54th minute when Joel Campbell took the ball on his chest and slammed it in off his left foot. 1-1, elation for Costa Rica. Three minutes later Costa Rica won a free kick, and Christian Bolaños put the ball into the penalty area. Oscar Duarte was there to head the ball home, and Costa Rica had flipped the game on its head in under 200 seconds. To cap it all off, in the 84th minute Marco Urena slid home the ball past Uruguay’s goalkeeper Fernando Muslera. Costa Rica ended the game 3-1 and incredibly, ended matchday one on top of the table. Now while this was a good win, people still had their doubts. Considering Luis Suarez was nursing an injury and didn’t play, many assumed this was just a lucky result and Costa Rica would still be put away against Italy and England. The next match was against Italy, who had just beaten England 2-1. The winner of the match would book their qualification for the Round of 16. Italy had their two best chances of the match early on, with Mario Balotelli putting this lob wide and then sending this chance into Keylor Navas’ gloves. Up the other end a Joel Campbell penalty was denied by the ref. But it was in the 44th minute when Bryan Ruiz would jump up, head it in off the crossbar and score the only goal of the match and get Costa Rica a 1-0 win. And when the full time whistle went, the Ticos players were ecstatic. Not only on the pitch, but also back home in Costa Rica, where the fans were celebrating their qualification to the knockouts. And it really is just one of the reasons why people love the World Cup.

There was one more match in the knockouts, a dead rubber match against England. England weren’t as bad as some people remember in this World Cup, but they were yet to pick up a point after 2-1 losses to both Italy and Uruguay. The match ended 0-0.

Yeah so this game was boring.

While there was slight disappointment they couldn’t go 3/3, the point was more than enough for Costa Rica, as it meant they could avoid Group C’s winner, Colombia, who while being a dark horse themselves, were a team no one wanted to face, led by promising youngster James Rodriguez. Costa Rica would instead face Greece, still a good side, but an easier opponent than Colombia. Greece were led by their strong defense that consisted of Sokratis Papadopolous, Kostas Manolas and Jose Holebas, while Orestis Kornezis wore the gloves and Bryan Ruiz’s Fulham teammate Kostas Mitroglou wore the number nine for the Greek. The first half was boring, there’s no need to talk about it. But a quick shoutout to Keylor Navas. I’ve mainly focused on the attack in this video, but Navas was brilliant the entire World Cup, and was Costa Rica’s player of the match against Greece. In the 52nd minute Bryan Ruiz took Costa Rica’s only shot on target in the entire match, and found the net. Three minutes later this happened… no penalty. In the 66th minute Oscar Duarte, already on a yellow card, took out Jose Holebas à la Street Fighter 2. He was sent off and Costa Rica had to play the last 25 minutes with ten minute. But despite being down a man, Keylor Navas was not going home, and pulled out one last save to win the match. Unfortunately he couldn’t stop the rebound from Sokratis.

Greece’s equalizer in the 91st minute assured that another half an hour would be played. Both key chances belonged to Greece, but Keylor Navas was just incredible, denying the Greeks and sending the match to penalties. The first seven penalties all found the back of the net, giving Los Ticos a 4-3 lead. Veteran Theofanis Gekas was up for penalty number eight and Keylor Navas just murphed into prime Lev Yashin. Defender Michael Umaña was up for Costa Rica, and nailed it into the top left corner. Costa Rica 5, Greece 3. Costa Rica were into the final eight.

The quarter final match was against the Netherlands, who were a team no one wanted to face. They had started off their World Cup by scoring five goals past reigning champions Spain, and then beat Australia and Chile to finish top of Group B, before narrowly beating Mexico in the Round of 16, courtesy of a Klaas-Jan Hunterlaar which definitely did not come from an Arjen Robben dive.

Due to a Nigel De Jong injury, Louis Van Gaal had to make some adjustments to his team, playing a winger and a defensive midfielder as wing backs while starting a frightening front three of Memphis Depay, Arjen Robben and Robin Van Persie. Costa Rica looked at that front three and adopted their inner Jose Mourinho, parking the bus. But once again Keylor Navas was elite, making four first half saves and denying the men in orange at every chance he got and kept a clean sheet over two hours of football. Unfortunately for him, his teammates couldn’t find the net, and we went to penalties. With barely any time remaining in the match, Louis Van Gaal took a gamble, and substituted his starting goalkeeper Jasper Cillesen for Tim Krul, who he preferred for penalties. Now substituting goalkeepers for shootouts doesn’t always work, ask Thomas Tuchel. But Van Gaal’s gamble would indeed pay off for the Dutch. 2-1 down, captain Bryan Ruiz stepped up and was denied by a brilliant Tim Krul save. The next four penalties were scored, before the hero against Greece, Michael Umaña, stepped up for Costa Rica, and was denied. The Dutch moved on to the semi-finals, and Costa Rica’s incredible World Cup run was over.

Despite the heartbreaking loss, Costa Rican fans could take pride in knowing what their team had done. They were treated like heroes after returning to their homeland, and it meant more than anything to all the football fans living in Costa Rica. Individually, the biggest winner out of this was Keylor Navas, who’s incredible keeping in Brazil earnt him a transfer to Real Madrid, where he would win three Champions League titles before moving to PSG. But the 2014 World Cup also led to a great aftermath for Costa Rica themselves. Manager Jorge Luis Pinto left the team after the Netherlands lost, but former Ticos defender Paulo Wanchope replaced him, and Costa Rica got on with it. In the 2014 Centroamerica, Costa Rica made the final after getting out of a three team group with Panama and Nicaragua, and only seventy days after the devastating Netherlands loss, Costa Rica beat Guatamala 2-1 to win their eighth Centroamerica. The 2015 Gold Cup and 2016 Copa America were tournaments to forget for Costa Rica, but the important thing was qualifying for the 2018 World Cup, which they did. Unfortunately Costa Rica were grouped in Russia, but going to another World Cup was huge for Costa Rica, and after defeating New Zealand in the inter confederation playoffs, we’re now going to see Costa Rica in their third consecutive World Cup this November. But no matter what happens in Qatar, it’ll be hard for this team to pass the incredible accomplishment that played out in the 2014 World Cup.