The two sides fought in the game.
On the evening of the 27th, the match between Japan and Costa Rica in Group E was played at the Raiyang Ali Stadium.
After a 2-1 victory over Germany in the first match, Japan had high hopes – five of Japan's iconic landmarks Tokyo Tower, Kyoto Tower, Sapporo TV Tower, Nagoya TV Tower and Fukuoka Tower were lit up at the same time.
Fuller scored for Costa Rica.
But Japan lived up to expectations - in the 81st minute, Costa Rica made a steal in front, Fuller scored a beautiful pick after winning the ball, and Shuichi Kwon with all his might, but still could not stop the ball from entering the net.
The goal was also Costa Rica's first shot on target of the tournament.
In the end, Japan lost 0-1 to Costa Rica, and after two games with Costa Rica, they accumulated three points.
The media focused on Japan coach Hoichi Mori.
Before the match against Costa Rica, Japan was the side that was definitely bullished.
Japan coach Morihoichi also boasted before the game that he would continue to win, "The victory is uplifting, I learned some of the reactions after the victory over Germany, so we want to beat them against Costa Rica and pay tribute to the Japanese people." ”
Costa Rica, who lost 7-0 in the first game, also said they wanted to perform, with manager Suarez telling the media: "We are not dead yet, we have to play a completely different game than the one in Spain. ”
Joel Campbell (right) played for Arsenal.
Costa Rica has only met Asian teams once in its history – in the 2002 World Cup, Costa Rica beat China 2-0 in the first round of the group stage.
However, in a total of 4 matches in all competitions against Japan, Costa Rica drew 1 and lost 3, conceding 10 goals and scoring only 2 goals.
Costa Rican door god Navas.
According to the statistics of the "German Transfer Market" website, the total value of the Japanese squad is 154 million euros, Costa Rica is only 18.75 million euros, and the most expensive player in Japan itself is Eintracht Frankfurt midfielder Daichi Kamata, who is worth 30 million euros alone.
In this game, the Japanese team started with five adjustments, in addition to Don Yasuru, who scored as a substitute in the first game, there were Yamane Seera, Morita Hidemasa, Soma Yuki, and Ueda Kiyo first, and the last four players all made their World Cup debuts.
Japan struggled to get the fire to the opponent's half after the opening game, and Japanese goalkeeper Shuichi Gonda only touched the ball with four feet in 30 minutes, but in front of Costa Rica's tenacious defense, Japan did not get a good chance.
Don Anlu started the game.
Before the game, Morihoichi emphasized the control of the ball, "In the game against Germany, our possession rate was not satisfactory, and this game hopes to improve the possession rate and master more initiative. ”
Surprisingly, Costa Rica was always the dominant possession in the first half, at one point reaching 60%, but the offensive end did not achieve anything - because Costa Rica added too many crosses and return passes in order to reduce the risk of the game.
BBC field commentator McNamara said the game was very tedious, "Usually I go looking for the positives in the game, but I'm struggling right now, it's not a classic game. ”
Yuki Soma started the battle.
Former England defender Stephen Warnock said: "It's terrible, I don't usually drink tea or coffee, now I need a cup of coffee to wake me up. I told everyone it was a game to look forward to and now I need to apologise to everyone. ”
"They struggled when the ball was at Costa Rica's feet, they seemed to just want to defend, and the Japanese didn't have a good attack. In fact, they only showed their performance after making substitutions in the last game. ”
Daichi Kamada breaks through in the race.
Comments about the bad game abound online, "the worst 45 minutes so far", "glad there was only 1 minute of stoppage time", "it's 3 a.m. in San José, Costa Rica, hoping that fans watching the game will not doze off..."
At half-time, the data showed that the two sides had only five shots on goal in total, none of which occurred in the box and none hit the target, the first time since the start of this World Cup.
Takuma Asano came off the bench.
In the second half, Morihoichi replaced Kiyo Ueda and Yuto Nagatomo with Takuma Asano and Yoki Ito – and after Japan began to pick up speed, they hit four goals in the first five minutes, twice as many as in the first half.
This is not surprising – in the last match, Japan had only two shots on goal before Asano came on the field in the 57th minute, and then Japan had nine shots on goal, Asano alone had five shots on goal, including the winning goal. Mori's team seems to like to be late starters.
Fuller helped Costa Rica win.
But after besieging Costa Rica's goal, Japan's defense had problems - in the 81st minute, Costa Rica made a steal in front, Fuller scored a beautiful pick after winning the ball, and Shuichi Kwon made a full save, but still could not prevent the ball from entering the net.
In the end, the pre-match imposing Japanese team could only accept one defeat, which also gave the German team another reassurance before the match against Spain.