The Costa Rican soccer team will face Qatar on November 13th in a friendly match to be played in Austria, the Costa Rican Soccer Federation reported this past Monday. “Qatar is the current Asian champion and a team that is taking its preparation to host the next World Cup very seriously, so we are convinced that it will be a high-level rival,” said the administrative director of the National Teams, Diego Brenes. The engagement will take place at the Hartberg Stadium in Austria and is the first FIFA date for friendly matches that month.
The Costa Rican Soccer Federation will announce this week the rival of the second FIFA date in November, which it will also be in Europe. The Costa Rican team will be made up of a majority of soccer players who are active abroad and the list of those called up will be announced in the coming days, the Federation indicated.
“Our goal was to find the best combination of matches for this FIFA date, balancing our sporting capacity with what is logistically possible under current conditions, which has been achieved with this game plus the one that we will officially announce during this week”, Brenes said.
This will be the fourth game that Costa Rica plays in 2020 under the command of coach Ronald González. The previous ones were a defeat against the United States and two falls against Panama, all by the same score of 1-0. Costa Rica’s two losses at home to Panama this October meant a return to the field for both teams after seven months since the Pandemic reached Central America.
Mixed results and expectations
Costa Rica faced these matches with local league players due to the difficulty of travel in the context of the Pandemic and the results generated harsh criticism from the press and fans, especially due to the low level shown.
For the November commitments, it is expected that the Costa Rican team will be made up mostly of footballers who play in Europe, such as French PSG goalkeeper Keylor Navas, Spanish Levante defender Óscar Duarte and Spanish Deportivo La Coruña midfielder Celso Borges, in addition to those who play in the United States MLS.
