Costa Rican Women's National Football Team / World Championships

Costa Rica
República de Costa Rica

World Cup record scorer :	Melissa Herrera , Raquel Rodríguez , Karla Villalobos (1 each)
World Cup record player:	11 players (3 each)
Rank :	29
Balance sheet
3 World Cup games 0 wins 2 draws 1 loss 3: 4 goals
statistics
First World Cup game Costa Rica 1: 1 Spain Montreal ( CAN ); June 9, 2015
Biggest World Cup defeat Costa Rica 0: 1 Brazil Ottawa ( CAN ); 17th June 2015
successes
World Championship
Participation in the finals	1 ( first : 2015 )
Best results	Preliminary round 2015
Best placements in the countries that host the FIFA World Cup
(As of July 2019 )

The article contains a detailed account of the Costa Rican national soccer team for women at world championships . Costa Rica was able to qualify for the first time in 2014 for the World Cup finals, which took place in June 2015, but was eliminated without a win after the preliminary round and ranked as the worst Central American team in 27th place in the all-time ranking. Since Costa Rica could not qualify for the 2019 World Cup and newcomer Chile and the previously poorly placed Spanish women could win a game, Costa Rica slipped to 29th place.

The national team at world championships

Overview

year	Host country	Participation until ...	opponent	Result	Trainer	Comments and special features
1991	People's Republic of China	not qualified				In the qualification of Canada failed, but which also could not qualify.
1995	Sweden	not participated
1999	United States	not qualified				In the qualification of Canada failed.
2003	United States	not qualified				In the qualification of Mexico failed, which then failed in the intercontinental playoff against Japan.
2007	People's Republic of China	not qualified				Panama failed in the pre-qualification , which then failed in the playoffs / quarter-finals of the Gold Cup.
2011	Germany	not qualified				In the qualification to the United States failed.
2015	Canada	Preliminary round	Spain , South Korea , Brazil	18th	Amelia Valverde	In the group stage after two draws and one defeat against Brazil, they were eliminated as the worst group third
2019	France	not qualified				In the qualification of Canada and Jamaica failed.

statistics

(Information including qualification 2019: eight world championships)

• not participated: once (12.5%)
• not qualified: six times (75%; 1991, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2019)
• qualified: once (12.5%; 2015)
  • Preliminary round: once (12.5%; 2015)

The tournaments

World Cup 1991 in the People's Republic of China

Costa Rica could not qualify for the first women's World Cup . A tournament in Port-au-Prince , the capital of Haiti, served as North and Central America qualification . In the first round, the Costa Ricans met Canada in their first international match and lost 6-0. In the second game against hosts Haiti they lost 4-0, so that they had no chance to qualify for the World Cup before the game against Jamaica . With a 2: 1 there was at least the first victory with which Costa Rica was third. After that, the team did not play a game for seven years. Ultimately, the USA was the only CONCACAF representative to qualify for the World Cup and was the first CONCACAF team to become world champions.

World Cup 1995 in Sweden

Four years later, Costa Rica did not participate in the qualification.

World Cup 1999 in the USA

Costa Rica also wanted to qualify for the third World Cup. The qualification took place as the 1998 CONCACAF Women's Championship in Canada , for which Costa Rica had to qualify first. At a tournament in Guatemala City , the Guatemala B team was first defeated 17-0, but then lost to Haiti 2-1. As runners-up in the group, Costa Rica went straight to the game for third place against El Salvador , which was won 5-1. The team was thus qualified for the tournament in Canada. Here the first game against Mexico was lost 3-2. This was followed by a 3-1 win against Trinidad and Tobago . With a 2-1 win against Haiti, the group stage was finished second. In the semifinals, there was a 2-0 win against Canada . Costa Rica was eliminated. Canada won the final against Mexico 1-0 and qualified directly for the World Cup. Mexico was able to prevail in the Pan-American playoffs with two wins (3: 1 and 3: 2) against Argentina , so that for the first time three CONCACAF teams took part in the World Cup finals.

2003 World Cup in the USA

The 2003 World Cup should actually take place again in the People's Republic of China . Because of the SARS epidemic, the tournament was moved to the USA at short notice. This was the second time that the World Cup took place in the USA, making the USA the only nation to host a soccer World Cup twice in a row. As hosts, the USA were automatically qualified again, but they still took part in the qualifying CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup 2002 . In qualifying, Costa Rica prevailed with four wins against Honduras , Guatemala , Panama and El Salvador. In the finals, Jamaica were beaten 2-0 and Haiti 5-0 in the first two games. After a 3-0 win against Canada, they reached the semi-finals as second in the group. In this they lost 7-0 to the USA and then the game for 3rd place against Mexico 1: 4. Thus the intercontinental playoffs against Japan were missed, in which Mexico also failed. Thus, CONCACAF was only represented by the USA and Canada at the World Cup.

World Cup 2007 in the People's Republic of China

Four years later the World Cup took place in the People's Republic of China for the second time . The 2006 CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup again served as a qualifying tournament. Costa Rica already failed in the qualification due to two defeats against Guatemala and Panama. In the end, neither of them could qualify and CONCACAF was again only represented by the USA and Canada.

World Cup 2011 in Germany

Costa Rica was also unable to qualify for the 2011 World Cup, but only narrowly failed. For the CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup 2010 , which again served as a qualifying tournament, the team qualified with two wins against Nicaragua and Honduras. The preliminary round ended with two wins against Guatemala (1-0) and Haiti (3-0) and one defeat against the USA (0-4) in second place. In the semifinals they lost 4-0 to Canada. Since in the other semifinals Mexico won a game in the Gold Cup against the USA for the first time (2: 1), which meant that they lost a game in the Gold Cup for the first time, Costa Rica met the USA again in the game for third place and lost 3-0. The USA finished third, but this was not enough for direct qualification. Instead, the USA had to play two more games against Italy , both of which were won 1-0, making the USA the third CONCACAF team alongside champions Canada and runners-up Mexico.

2015 World Cup in Canada

Starting line-up for the Costa Ricans in their first World Cup game

→ Main article : 2015 Women's World Cup / Costa Rica

For the seventh World Cup, the number of starting places has been increased to 24 and the CONCACAF teams, along with hosts Canada, have three direct starting places. Another CONCACAF team had the chance to qualify in Pan-American playoffs against the third party in the South American qualification. For the CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup 2014 , which was again considered a qualification for the World Cup, Costa Rica qualified with two wins against Nicaragua and El Salvador and then in an additional qualifier with a win against Guatemala for the Pan American Games 2015 in Toronto , which take place after the World Cup. At the Gold Cup, Costa Rica prevailed as group winners in the group stage with three wins against Mexico (1-0), Jamaica (2-1) and Martinique (6-1). With a win on penalties in the semifinals against Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica qualified for the World Cup for the first time, but then lost 6-0 to the USA in the final, which the USA exceeded their own final record of the first edition in 1991 by one goal. Trinidad and Tobago lost in the game for third place against Mexico, which also qualified for the World Cup, and then failed in the playoffs with a last-minute goal to Ecuador , which qualified for the first time.

When the groups were drawn, Costa Rica was not seeded and was “drawn” to group E with South American champions Brazil . Other opponents were South Korea and World Cup newcomer Spain .

The team ended their first two games against Spain and South Korea in a draw. The decisive final group game was lost against Brazil with 0: 1, so that the team was eliminated as the worst group third of all groups.

World Cup 2019 in France

For the CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup 2018 , which was again considered a qualification for the World Cup, Costa Rica qualified with three wins against Panama, Nicaragua and El Salvador at a tournament in Florida at the end of August 2018 . At the Gold Cup, Costa Rica started 8-0 against Cuba, but then ran out of powder and lost against Jamaica 0-1 and Canada 1-3. Thus, the team retired as third in the group and could not qualify for the World Cup.

Games

All World Cup games
No.	date	Result	opponent	venue	occasion	Remarks
1	06/09/2015	1: 1	Spain	Montreal ( CAN )	Preliminary round	First game against Spain
2	06/13/2015	2: 2	South Korea	Montreal ( CAN )	Preliminary round
3	06/17/2015	0: 1	Brazil	Moncton ( CAN )	Preliminary round

Note: The team in bold were champions of their confederation at the time of the game.

particularities

• Costa Rica is the last team to lose a World Cup game for the first time.

Negative records

Costa Rica is one of the eight teams that have not yet won a World Cup game.

See also

• Costa Rican National Football Team / World Championships

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The placements from 5th place onwards were determined by FIFA without any placement games, see Technical Report FIFA Women's World Cup Canada 2015 ™ , page 159
2. ↑ framba.de: Women's World Cup 2015: group draw degenerates into a farce ( memento of the original from December 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated December 6, 2014. 

Web links

• FIFA Women's World Cup ^TM