Costa Rica completed the contract of 32 qualified teams for the World Cup Qatar 2022, by defeating New Zealand 1-0 in an international play-off between the fourth qualifiers for CONCACAF (North, Central America and the Caribbean) and the Oceania champion, on Tuesday at Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium in Doha.
Joel Campbell scored the only goal of the match 3 minutes into the match.
Costa Rica will join Group E, along with Spain, Germany and Japan, in the tournament scheduled from November 21 to December 18 in Qatar.
It is the sixth time that this small country has qualified for the World Cup following 1990, 2002, 2006, 2014 and 2018, and its most prominent participation was in 2014 when it reached the quarter-finals and lost on penalties to the Netherlands.
On the other hand, New Zealand failed to be present for the third time in the world event following 1982 and 2010 when it was eliminated from the first round. New Zealand had previously lost in the playoffs twice, once morest Mexico in the 2014 qualifiers (5-1 and 4-2), and Peru in the 2018 qualifiers (0-0 and 0-2).
After the Central American team advanced with the goal of former Arsenal striker Campbell, the Oceanian team tried to adjust the result and dominated the game with a possession rate of 64 percent in the first half and shot 9 times towards the goal, including three balls between the three wood, and the referee canceled a goal scored by Chris Woods before the end of the match. The first half shortly following a mistake made by his colleague Mathieu Garbet (39).
However, New Zealand received a painful blow when the referee raised the red card in the face of Costa Barbarosses following his violent intervention on Francisco Calvo, to complete the match with ten players (69).
Despite the lack of numbers, the New Zealand team threw all his weight in the last twenty minutes, but he did not succeed in threatening Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeper Keylor Navas.
