Costa Rica narrowly beat New Zealand to qualify for Qatar 2022

Costa Rica became the 32nd and final team selected for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar on Tuesday after beating New Zealand 1-0 in a playoff between CONCACAF and the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).

Joel Campbell scored the only goal of the match at the Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan (Qatar) 3 minutes into the first half.

Destination Costa Rica

Costa Rica wins first 👊🇨🇷

Thanks to this goal from Joel Campbell, he defeated New Zealand 1-0 and entered the World Cup in Qatar 🏆#RepechajexTNTSportspic.twitter.com/kXF2dgF7w2

– TNT Sports Argentina (@TNTSportsAR) June 14, 2022

The “Dicos” will go to a very difficult Group E, in which Spain, Germany and Japan are already waiting. Yesterday, Australia qualified by beating Peru on penalties.

This is the sixth World Cup for Costa Rica, having already played in Italy 1990, Korea-Japan 2002, Germany 2006, Brazil 2014 (its best historical participation after losing in the quarter-finals against the Netherlands) and Russia 2018.

New Zealand were looking to participate for the third time after Spain 82 and South Africa 2010.