The 11th match of the FIFA World Cup 2022 saw the team from Costa Rica take on the former world champions Spain in the opener. The 2010 world champions entered the match as favorites, but people still had a benefit of doubt in favour of Costa Rica, considering the two underdog upsets earlier in the tournament where Saudi Arabia defeated Argentina and Japan stunned Germany in just the previous match.
The match commenced with the Costa Ricans kicking off, but Espanols in red quickly began asserting their dominance. Just a couple of minutes into the game, the Spanish were simply not letting the ball slip to the Costa Rican players, and it seemed as if the ball belonged to them. 11 minutes down, Pablo Martinez Gavi, the youngest player to ever play a World Cup match, scoops the ball gracefully to Dani Olmo, who controls the ball skillfully and puts it through into the Costa Rican goal past their goalie Navas for the opening goal of the match.
Multiple attempts by the men in red followed and they get to score their second goal in the 21st minute, that came off the boots of Marco Asensio. Oscar Duarte brings down Jordi Alba in the 30th minute and the referee calls for a penalty. Ferran Torres take the shot and successfully puts it into the nets, taking Spain 3-0 on the scoreboard. In just 30 minutes, Spain have taken a healthy lead over Costa Rica, courtesy goals by Dani Olmo, Marco Asensio and Ferran Torres leaving the Costa Ricans in total disarray. 6 minutes are added as extra time, but no more goals, even though the Spanish men tried to get some more. Spain lead 3-0 at half time.
Spain were completely dominant in the first half, keeping more than 85{4dc4e91388017838581a326de33c632ff6050b9012ce4a5b463b369bff7bdfab} of ball possession. The second half began with Spain kicking things off and continuing form where they left off. 54 minutes on the timer, Gavi cuts through the Costa Rican defense to create another assist as he passes the ball to Torres, who turns swiftly and nets it in past the goalie, thus getting the 4th goal for Spain. Costa Rica were barely being able to reach the Spanish box, failing to create even a single scoring opportunity in the scond half.
After two sweet assists, Gavi finally added a goal to his credit at 75 minutes as he shot a perfect volley into the nets to get his first World cup goal and the fifth one for his time. He also became the youngest player to score a World Cup goal. As the timer ticked towards the end of the match, we probably witnessed two of the quickest goals ever scored in succession. The sixth Spanish goal come in at 90 minutes by Carlos Soler, followed by another one at 90+2 by Alvaro Morata, taking the tally to 7-0. The referee calls the end at 90+9 minutes, and Spain beat Costa Rica 7-0, the biggest ever win for Spain in a World Cup.
A pure show of dominance by the men in red, leaving Costa Rica no chance to even compete or pose a threat. Luckily for Spain, this didn’t turn out to be another underdog fairytale like just the previous game between Japan and Germany.
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