Costa Rica vs Uruguay 07/09/19

7 September 2019

Costa Rica and Uruguay will face-off at the Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica after both nations suffered heartbreaking penalty-shootout eliminations from their respective continental competitions.

It’s not been a successful year for Costa Rica so far, as they’ve suffered four defeats in eight outings since the turn of 2019 (W3, D1, L4). Interestingly, while three of their losses in that sequence saw them go down without scoring a goal, two of their wins have been accompanied by a clean sheet. The Costa Ricans have scored the opener inside the first half an hour of the game in four of their previous six matches, and they went to hold on to that lead on three occasions during the run (W3, L1). But, they had problems bouncing back after conceding first, as they struggled to reply to rivals’ opener in three of their last four such games (D1, L3).

Meanwhile, the under-strength visitors are yet to lose a game within 90 minutes this year, having pulled off five wins in seven outings since the turn of the year (W5, D2). All five of their triumphs in that period have seen them beat their opponents to nil, while four of those triumphs witnessed Uruguay score over 2.5 match goals. Interestingly, before being held to a goalless draw by Peru last time out, La Celeste have scored at least one goal in 11 of the preceding 12 halves of football played. The South American giants will now be eager to post their first win over Costa Rica in H2Hs after three straight failures (D1, L2), with two of those fixtures producing over 2.5 goals and seeing both involved nations find the net.