Costa Rica V Greece World Cup 2014

Costa Rica V Greece Fifa World Cup 2014

After match synopsis in red!!

Top bets on today’s game: Costa Rica V Greece

Time for Greece to go home, as the serious part of the competition starts for them. Cant do much without an out and out striker. Step up J Campbell to score again, against Greece a country where he plys his trade with Olympiakos!

J Campbell a/t scorer 11/4

Didn’t happen for Campbell, never went close really, but he did work his socks off, and was absolutely shattered by the end of the match.

Full betting previews, read here>

Beers: Round of 16 Beer World Cup:

http://thisdrinkinglife.com/world-cup-beer-last-16/

Who is set to win the battle of the beers? Unfortunately a Greek beer just missed out in a tight Group C, making Club Colombia from Colombia second in that beer group, and London Pride came first in Group D, so it is London Pride V Club Colombia. Who will quench the thirst, set the mood, get me in the right spirit? Click on picture for a preview of the beers.

Get the beer result after, much after!

London Pride V Club Colombia: 2-1 to London Pride. Club Colombia, much like its football team, have surprised me in this beer World Cup. I have found it to be a very tasty refreshingly good beer, with a nice looking body that was enjoyable to drink. It pours a lovely clear gold body, with a decent frothy head that lasts and has a smell that is not overpowering but sweet and corn like. The taste was of sweet toasted malts with no real aftertaste. A decent light tasting beer that I would recommend for a good session. But up against a strong ale in London Pride a lager will have to be much more than just nice. It would have to be seriously amazing to beat London Pride’s taste extravaganza! London Pride with its famous amber reddish colour, aromas of some biscuit malts and earthy hops with hints of caramel sweetness, and tastes of light caramel, some earthy hops with a mild bitter aftertaste. Its taste is unique to London Pride, lots of flavours, subtle and complex. I also enjoyed the strong aftertaste, which made you feel in no doubt that you were drinking a strong ale. A win for the English ale.

PreGame:

Costa Rica: No one would have expected Costa Rica to be still around at this stage of the World Cup, not even the most optimistic of their own fans I am sure. They topped their group, beating two former World Champions without too much difficulty it has to be said, and also getting a draw against the 1966 ex champs, England. In those three encounter they only conceded one goal, and that was from a penalty. But today is different. Different in the fact that in this game against Greece they are slight favourites. How will they cope in a game where they are the team expected to win, and dictate the tempo.

The game against England had a nice warm down feel to it, after the first two hectic adventures versus Italy and Uruguay. It was useful to have such a slow game after their exertions. The result wasn’t of huge importance, if only to note that they kept out England, and bagged another clean sheet. I suspect that the Greek forwards wont trouble them a whole lot today.

In Joel Campbell, Costa Rica have a player who plys his trade in Greece with Olympiakos. He should know at least a bit about some of the defence he will be going up against tonight. Would be a nice story if he scored to knock out Greece, and put his nation into the last eight of the World Cup. Now wouldn’t that be an amazing thing!

Greece amazingly qualified for this stage with a negative goal difference of minus two! The team are ultra-defensive and rarely score more than two goals in a game. They were lucky to get this far to be honest after getting a somewhat fortunate penalty in the 93rd minute against Ivory Coast. Lucky, lucky Greece.

To be fair to the Greeks, against the Ivory Coast, needing the win to advance, they played a little more adventurous with good play down the wings. And with that pressure came the first goal. Samaris scored from a mistake in the IC defence to latch onto a ball and score a nice peach of a strike to put Greece one up. In the second half and against the run of play, Karagounis almost made it 2-0 with a long-range effort that hit the crossbar.

Then deep into injury time they got the goal they needed. Whatever about the ins and outs of the penalty decision, the pressure Samaras was under was immense. Score and you are through to the last 16, miss and you are going home. Wow, that was a PRESSURE shot. Well done to Samaras for slotting it away.

Greece could conceivably win this game. They have done it before, and they certainly wont be a team that panics. They know their system, a system that works for them, and they will stick to it rigidly to the end. This Greek team just never knows when its beaten, and I wont be surprised to see them advance, possibly through a penalty shoot out, which if that was to be the case, then expect it to be a long long night!

Costa Rica are into the quarter-finals of the World Cup for the first time in their history after beating Greece 5-3 in a penalty shootout in Recife.

I had a feeling this game would go the distance, and boy was I right. Well done to Costa Rica you continue to entertain and surprise. I fully expected Greece to win a penalty shootout, but then I should have expected that under their wily old Costa Rican manager, Jorge Luis Pinto, they had put in a massive effort on the training pitch for penalties. And it showed as all their penalty kicks were expertly put away, calmly and without doubt. Brilliant, considering their legs must have felt like logs they were that tired.

The game started off brightly enough with both teams showing some early promise. Even Greece started to play a bit more attacking football than what we were previously used to seeing. Christodoulopoulos was lively down the wing, and Gonzalez was alert at the back all night, pulling off some magnificent defensive headers to keep the Greeks at bay. But the best chance of the first half arrived when Holebas whipped in a brilliant cross for Salpingidis to volley in a powerful shot. It was excellently saved by Costa Rica’s Keylor Navas. Navas was to be busy all night, performing save after save.

Costa Rica also had a very good goal chalked off for offside, correctly, but it was just inches offside. Unlucky.

The second half was a bit of a snooze fest, but Costa Rica did take the lead early on when Ruiz placed his shot into the corner of the goal giving the Greek goalkeeper no chance. Ruiz looked like he mishit the shot as the angle was all wrong, but a goal is a goal and Costa Rica took the lead.

They could have got a penalty close after, when it looked like the Greek defender Torosidis appeared to handle the ball in the box. At the time it wasn’t clear, but on replays it looked a definite penalty.

The referee further incensed Coast Rica when he gave Duarte his second yellow of the night, to be sent off, for what looked like a very soft foul on Holebas. Two major blunders from the officials here costing Costa Rica dearly as they had to hold out from the 66th minute with ten men in a game where they were stretched to the limits.

They just about managed to hold on, until in injury time the Greeks did it again. Another late injury time goal from Greece, when Papastathopoulos scored to send the game into extra time. To be fair to Greece their general play in the second half deserved a goal.

Greece used their man advantage outplaying Costa Rica for most of the extra time period. Navas pulled of about 5 or 6 amazing saves, particularly one in the last minute of extra time where he somehow got a touch to superbly tip over the bar Mitroglou’s late shot. Was one of the stand out player performances of the this years World Cup. Navas saved pretty much everything that was thrown at him.

Holebas for the Greeks was excellent and tried his hardest to get the win for his team, while for Costa Rica Joel Campbell had run himself into the ground, barely able to walk let alone run. One was wondering if both teams would be able to take 5 good penalties after giving their all in a brilliant period of extra time. The smart money was on Greece to excel in the penalties, mostly because the Costa Ricans looked shattered and also to the fact that Greece are dab hands at spot kicks. The first seven penalties were expertly dispatched with no problems before Gekas stepped up and took his shot, only for Navas to make one final save of the match and push it out. It was then left for Umana to try and score and put Costa Rica through. He looked very confident, and stepped up and made history. Tiny Costa Rica are now in the last eight of the World Cup. AMAZING. But they fully deserved it, playing with heart, skill and determination, they are my team of this years World Cup.

They now face the Netherlands on Saturday for a place in the semi-finals. Will their journey stop there? Probably so, but they have already rewrote the history books, and for that I say Thank you Costa Rica.

Music to get you in the mood

Tango India V ONAR