USMNT Qualifies For 2022 FIFA World Cup. Hopefully, So Will Costa Rica

The United States entered Wednesday’s qualifying finale needing merely to avoid a six-goal defeat in Costa Rica to seal their spot in at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

The Americans ultimately did that — despite a few nervy moments in a 2-0 defeat against a heavily rotated and young home side — to seal a deserved place in the tournament. Hopefully it’s a berth that will bring some healing after the scar tissue within American soccer from failing to qualify for 2018.

And if there is any justice in this sport, the Costa Ricans will join them.

For all the fussing over the United States and Mexico as the giants of Concacaf, and all the intrigue of star-studded Canada, no squad in the region has been as consistently impressive as the Ticos.

Costa Rica may not have a World Cup title or final appearance to its name. But they deserve to be considered alongside Uruguay and Croatia as a smaller footballing nation that reliably and repeatedly punches above its weight. At the very least, they should almost certainly be favored against New Zealand in June’s intercontinental playoff after finishing fourth in Concacaf, behind the U.S. only on goal difference.

Should the Ticos defeat the Kiwis, it will be the third consecutive World Cup appearance and sixth since 1990 for a nation of just over 5 million people.

This cycle was supposed to be an era of transition away from a generation that led the Ticos to their best-ever World Cup finish, a run to the 2014 quarterfinals.

An astounding 14 players currently over the age of 30 have appeared for Costa Rica during this qualifying cycle. Five of those have seen the field at least 10 times.

And 33-year-old midfielder Celso Borges had played in every qualifier until Wednesday, when he was one of eight players held out in fear of picking up a second yellow card and being suspended for the June playoff.

For the early portion of qualifying, Costa Rica did look old, scoring only once in their opening four matches while settling for just three points. They still had only seven to their name at the midpoint of the eight-team round robin in November.

But in their second time through the region, maybe they learned more about their opponents than opponents learned about them. Suddenly the Ticos were been the best team in Concacaf, winning six and drawing away to Mexico to seal at least a fourth-place finish with a game to spare.

In the process, their swagger has returned, in full display on Wednesday night when a starting XI including five players with fewer than five caps played the talented U.S. toe to toe and made more plays that mattered.

Defender Juan Pablo Vargas outmuscled Walker Zimmerman to put Costa Rica ahead with his first international goal from a corner. Then 22-year-old striker Anthony Contreras added his second of the cycle in only his fourth appearance.

G0alkeeper Keylor Navas — the one veteran on the field — was his typical masterful self until he had to leave with a late leg injury.

It all resulted in an astounding 10th consecutive victory over the Americans in qualifiers played on Costa Rican soil, a streak that stretches back into the 1980s.

An honest assessment of Concacaf might conclude that Costa Rica finished fourth not because their quality has lessened, but because the region’s has strengthened. The culprit is Canada, a nation that has always had a comparative abundance of resources relative to most in the region, but has only now begun performing up to its potential with the maturation of stars like Alphonso Davies and Jonathan David.

It was already tough enough for the smaller Central American and Caribbean countries to subsist on the scraps left by the U.S. and Mexico. Canada’s arrival has made it nearly impossible until the World Cup expands to 48 teams in 2026.

And yet here are the Ticos still standing, one win away from yet another appearance on the world’s biggest sporting stage. They’re everything that’s good about our peculiar part of the soccer world in the northern Western Hemisphere. They’re also just damn good, plenty good enough for Qatar.