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MOTD Preview: Costa Rica V Greece

By on June 29, 2014

Venue: Arena Pernabuco, Recife

KO Time: 21:00 BST

Costa Rica and Greece have never faced each other before, in neither an international tournament or friendly; this will be the first time the two teams have ever squared off. If Statistics are to go by Costa Rica should win this game tonight as Greece have only ever beaten African teams at a World Cup, and Costa Rica have scored in almost every single World Cup game they have played in – the only World Cup game they have failed to score in was last week when they drew England.

At the start of the tournament you would could not have thought these two teams would be facing off against each other for a place in the World Cup Quarterfinals, but that is precisely what has happened, as Costa Rica qualified quite extraordinarily defeating all odds and coming out of their group in first place, whilst the other qualified via a last minute penalty that sent their opposition home and the Greek side through.

Costa Rica have reached the knockout rounds of the World Cup for only the second time in their history, the previous time coming in 1990 when they were eventually knocked out in the Second Round by Czechslovakia. Their side tonight will be looking to try and go one further and reach the quarterfinals for the first time in the country’s history,; will this side become the country’s new national heroes? They have ninety minutes to do so.

Jorge Luis Pinto’s side have shocked millions of people around the world with the way his team have been playing, with shock wins against Italy and Uruguay and a draw against England meant Los Tico’s came first in the group that everyone wrote them off from. Their balance between attack and defense has been near exquisite, with Arsenal’s Joel Campbell leading the front line and a back five with effective wing-backs Cristian Gamboa and Junior Diaz providing support in attack and defense when needed. But the most striking thing about Costa Rica is their incredible team effort; they attack as a unit and defend as a unit, which means the opposition find it hard to break them down and also find it hard to cope with them when they’re on the attack.

Greece will provide a different kind of test for the Costa Rican side, though – the European side are renown for their strong defensive capabilities and this tactic paid off 10 years ago this year when Greece shocked the whole of Europe by winning the Euro Championships 2004.  The Greeks sat back and soaked up all the pressure before counter-attacking teams and scoring just one single goal before soaking up further pressure.  Can they reproduce this in this tournament and win the World Cup – surely not?

Greece only scraped through their group, quite literally. Scoring a penalty with just 30 seconds to go and dumping African side Ivory Coast out of the tournament to make it to the knockout stages, again their defensive abilities paid of dividends. A quick counter-attack led to Giorgios Samaras being fouled in the box, and the rest is history. The first two games for Greece will be ones their fans won’t want to remember – they where heavily defeated 3-0 by a strong Colombia side and then a bore draw against Asian side Japan followed. It looked like the Greek team were all but out, but they fought back and scored two rare goals to put them through.

The average number of goals per game in the group stages of the tournament was 2.83, yet Greece’s average goals per game was just 0.44 so if you are looking for a goal fest you are watching the wrong game, but then again you will probably watch it anyway. This is the World Cup.

Tonight’s game will be close and could go either way, but both teams will be looking to avoid extra time and penalties which could be detrimental to their energy levels in the next game. I can see this one being settled inside 90 minutes.

Prediciton: Costa Rica 1-0 Greece

About Callum Kenwright

Evertonian. Angler. Oasis. Spanish Football. Aspiring Football Journalist.