Costa Rica earn World Cup redemption as Japan near another tragedy from jaws of triumph



Aside from a brisk start, when Ayase Udea almost made a telling connection with Yuki Soma’s corner inside the first minute, Costa Rica were more resolute and organised than in defeat to Spain. With a five-man defence rather than a four, Los Ticos had no intention of allowing Japan to simply put one foot in the last-16. Except it was not clear what their actual intentions were either.

With Germany to come in Group E’s final round, a win over the third-seeds still represented Costa Rica’s best chance of prolonging their stay at the tournament, but their best chance of troubling Gonda was an outside-of-the-foot shot from one-time Arsenal winger Joel Campbell. It was speculative, at best, and well off target. Their counter-attacking approach produced little else.

Japan’s Yuto Nagatomo, left, is challenged by Costa Rica’s Gerson Torres

It is difficult to have a half of football at this World Cup so devoid of action, so absent of incident, that it only produces one minute of added time. This did not even produce that. Referee Michael Oliver mercifully blew up with around 20 seconds of that additional minute still remaining, leaving even Fifa’s stadium announcer to admit that the opening 45 minutes had been “relatively quiet”.

Costa Rica’s defender Keysher Fuller scores

Something had to change if Japan were going to seize the moment. Moriyasu matched up with Costa Rica, switching to a back three with the potential to become a five, and introduced Takuma Asano, the match-winner against Germany. Again there was a fast start, with Morita forcing Keylor Navas to parry the first shot on target of the afternoon, but again that early pressure was not sustained.

Costa Rica’s defender Keysher Fuller celebrates with teammates

Japan were at least unmistakably in the ascendancy now and Moriyasu continued to turn to his bench in search of finding an edge. One of his substitutes, Junya Ito, might have found the breakthrough had he not been cynically pulled down by Francisco Calvo when on the edge of Costa Rica’s box. It appeared to fit the criteria of denial of a goalscoring opportunity, but Oliver only saw fit to show a yellow, and Soma wasted the subsequent free-kick.

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Costa Rica’s defender Keysher Fuller celebrates

It was one-way traffic by that point, until suddenly it wasn’t. When it came, Fuller’s goal was Costa Rica’s first shot on target. Japan scrambled for an equaliser – quite literally, when an inviting cross from Brighton’s Kaoru Mitoma was almost forced in by Daichi Kamara, sparking the mother of all stramashes inside Costa Rica’s six-yard box. They survived, and remain standing at this World Cup, while Japan snatched another tragedy from the jaws of triumph.

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