Uruguay vs. Costa Rica — Preview

VS.

The drama of World Cup qual­i­fy­ing reaches its apex in the next 7 days as the final spots for South Africa 2010 will be set.  Nations will be par­a­lyzed as their teams fight for foot­balling glory.  The CONCACAF vs. CONMEBOL play­off fea­tures Los Ticos of Costa Rica vs. Char­rúas of Uruguay.

Its the first time that the 4th place CONCACAF team faces the 5th place CONMEBOL team.  The 1st leg will take place on Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 14th in San Jose in Costa Rica’s Saprissa Sta­dium, the 2nd leg takes place on Wednes­day, Novem­ber 18th in Mon­te­v­ideo at the Esta­dio Centenario.

HOME FIELDS
The arti­fi­cial turf of Saprissa Sta­dium has been a mas­sive advan­tage for Costa Rica in qual­i­fy­ing. In 9 home matches, Costa Rica has 8 wins & 1 loss.  They’ve allowed only 4 goals in those matches.  Saprissa has become the best home field advan­tage in CONCACAF.  How­ever, Uruguay will not be intim­i­dated by Saprissa con­sid­er­ing that they played 9 road games in the tough­est WC qual­i­fy­ing region. The Esta­dio Cen­te­nario in the Uruguayan cap­i­tal of Mon­te­v­ideo hasn’t been the fortress for Las Char­rúas. In qual­i­fy­ing, their oppo­si­tion were able to take points in 5 of the 9 matches. A fact that Costa Rica can use if they need a road goal.

MATCHUPS
The Uruguayan cen­tral defen­sive tan­dem of Diego Lugano & Diego Godin will have to stop Costa Rica’s attack­ing duo of Bryan Ruiz and Álvaro Saborío. The Ruiz-Saborio combo each have 6 goals in qual­i­fy­ing and will be ener­gized at home but the ful­crum of the Costa Rican attack is Celso Borges. The 21-year old mid­fielder who plays pro ball in Nor­way for Fredrik­stad FK is the man that must break­down the Uruguayan defense and open up oppor­tu­ni­ties for Ruiz and Saborio.

Costa Rica’s defense will have two world class goal scor­ers to worry about. Atlético Madrid’s Diego For­lán is the reign­ing Pichichi in La Liga and Uruguay’s lead­ing scorer in World Cup qual­i­fy­ing. Ajax’s cap­tain, Luis Suárez has been an absolute night­mare for defenses in the Dutch Ere­di­visie. Suárez is the hottest striker com­ing into these WC play­off matches. Suárez has 16 goals in 13 Ere­di­visie matches at 22-years old, he is the present and future of Uruguay’s attack. The anchor of the Costa Rican defense is Júnior Díaz, the Wis?a Kraków defender will have to play well and help orga­nize the Ticos’ defense in order to keep Suárez and For­lán off the score sheet.

PREDICTION
Uruguay’s attack will be too strong for an aver­age at best Costa Rican defense. Saprissa’s arti­fi­cial turf and rau­cous atmos­phere will not intim­i­date the South Amer­i­cans. The explo­sive attack of Las Char­rúas espe­cially at Esta­dio Cen­te­nario will get CONMEBOL a 5th entrant into The Great Tour­na­ment.
Uruguay defeats Costa Rica, 3–1 aggregate.

Tagged as: CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, Qualifiers