Chile – Costa Rica SOCCER PICKS
Chile and Costa Rica meet in El Teniente Stadium, in a friendly match. This will be the 9th of the year for Chile, after the previous ones played against Mexico, Peru, Republic of Korea, Poland, Serbia, Romania, Denmark and Sweden. In the case of Costa Rica, this is their 10th friendly match of the year, after having already faced Colombia, Mexico, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Belgium, England, Northern Ireland, Tunisia and Scotland. There is no recent record of direct confrontations between these two teams, who have not played any matches in the last 3 years. The last time they met was on 01-21-2014, in a match that ended with the final score: Chile (4-0) Costa Rica. Particular attention is required for the home / away condition, since both teams present significantly different results at home and abroad.
Chile:
This is the 9th friendly match of the year for the home team, after previous friendlies in which they registered the following results: Mexico (0-1) Chile, Peru (3-0) Chile, Republic of Korea (0-0) Chile , Poland (2-2) Chile, Serbia (0-1) Chile, Romania (3-2) Chile, Denmark (0-0) Chile and Sweden (1-2) Chile. This is a team that usually makes good use of the home advantage, stronger with the help of its supporters, since in the last 30 matches they register 4 wins, 6 draws and 5 losses in away matches, with 14 goals scored and 18 conceded; against 9 wins, 2 draws and 4 losses at their stadium, with 28 goals scored and 17 conceded. In the last 6 home matches Chile has 3 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses.
Chile has, in theory, one of the strongest selections in South America, but disappointed in the last qualifiers, as it ended up staying out of the last World Cup and is trying to restructure to return to the next World Cup. The home team is characterized by an offensive system of quality, based on possession of the ball, and creates several opportunities for goals per game, but the defensive sector is somewhat fragile, it takes time to recompose and finds great difficulty in sustaining the counterattacks , since he likes to play with the highest defensive line and that has been a big problem in front of fast attacks, as is the case of his next opponent. For the game against Costa Rica, coach Reinaldo Rueda must act in a balanced 4-4-2, with a fast attack front and midfielders who support quite offensively, highlighting Arturo Vidal in the midfield organization and striker Alexis Sanchez, which despite not being one of its best seasons, has great technical quality and power of completion.
Costa Rica:
The visiting team disputes its 10th friendly of the year. In the previous friendlies he registered the following scorecards: Colombia (3-1) Costa Rica, Mexico (3-2) Costa Rica, Japan (3-0) Costa Rica, Republic of Korea (2-0) Costa Rica, Belgium (4) -1) Costa Rica, England (2-0) Costa Rica, Costa Rica (3-0) Northern Ireland, Tunisia (1-0) Costa Rica and Scotland (0-1) Costa Rica. This is a team that usually makes good use of the home advantage, stronger with the help of its supporters, since in the last 30 matches they register 3 wins, 1 draw and 11 losses in away matches; against 6 wins, 7 draws and 2 losses at their stadium. In the last 8 away matches for the Friendlies, Costa Rica won 1 and lost 7.
For this competition, it registers a sequence of 7 defeats in the last matches as a visitor. The team allowed goals to the opponent in 7 of the last 9 matches for this competition, so it was not very strong defensively. In 9 matches in this competition, he never got the comeback in the 5 games in which he suffered the first goal.
Costa Rica is the 37th ranked in the FIFA Ranking and managed to play the last World Cup, eliminating the United States team. Now, start a new cycle to reach the World Cup in 2022. The team has not had a good performance after the World Cup, since it accumulates 4 consecutive losses, but all against more qualified selections. The visiting team is characterized by playing with enough speed, trying to create danger mainly by the flanks, but the big problem is that it has a fragile defense, which leaves many spaces, so much so that in the 4 friendlies previously mentioned, in 3 of them suffered 3 goals and in 1 of them suffered 2, being a team that has players of low technical quality in this sector, which should be a great difficulty against a team of high technical quality, as is the case of Chile. For the match against the South Americans, coach Gonzalez should play 4-4-1-1 with highlight for midfielder Bryan Ruiz, responsible for the offensive creation.
