World Cup, Uruguay vs Costa Rica result: Campbell leads comeback, Costa Rica wins 3-1

Uruguay and Costa Rica opened Group D play in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. They’ve landed in arguably the toughest group in the tournament and Uruguay needed a win over Costa Rica to contend with Italy and England for one of the group’s two spots in the knock out round.

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With England and Italy playing later in the day tit was a chance for Uruguay to move into first and get some goal differential under their belts. They’d have to do so with out super striker Luis Suarez, who is still recovering from a knee injury that required an operation.

The Uruguayan team has a ton of offensive fire power so it wasn’t a huge loss, but one that would be noticeable. In the first 15 minutes it looked like Edinson Cavani had given the Uruguayans an early lead but the goal was disallowed for an offside call.

They got a chance less than 10 minutes later and continuing the theme of the 2014 World Cup so far, Uruguay’s Diego Lugano went down in the box and drew a penalty. This one might be the only one that isn’t controversial however.

Costa Rica’s Júnior Díaz clearly has his arms locked around Lugano’s waist and is holding him. It looks like he fell forward causing him to fall, and Díaz fell on Lugano as well.

Striker Edinson Cavani stepped up to the spot to take the free kick and buried it in the back of the net easily to give Uruguay a 1-0 lead midway through the first half.

The game was tighter than some had expected, but there were still chances for both teams in the first half. Uruguay held a slight lead in the possession at the break, and an advantage in both shots and shots on target in the first half.

The real noticeable difference was fouls, Uruguay had six in the first half while Costa Rica had 10. One of those fouls of course led to the Cavani penalty which was the difference at the break.

In the 50th minute Costa Rica had  a close opportunity after a free kick into the box towards the far post. Defender Óscar Duarte got a head on it for Costa Rica but Uruguayan goalkeeper Fernando Muslera was able to get in the way, though he wasn’t able to control the ball, simply block it.

In the 54th minute the Costa Ricans were finally able to pull level in the game. A ball was headed across the box by Celso Borges towards striker Joel Campbell.

He controlled the ball beautifully, chesting it down and then moving to his left. Then Campbell struck the ball with his left foot redirecting the ball back across the goal towards the right post where it got past the Uruguayan keeper to tie the game up.

Three minutes later, defender Óscar Duarte gave Costa Rica the lead in a quick momentum change few minutes.

A cross came into the box and Duarte was jockeying for position near the back post. The ball was low and Duarte dropped to get a head on it nearly getting kicked in the head in the process. Duarte was able to head the ball perfectly around the keeper and towards the back post for the goal.

At this point the Uruguayans got desperate in a game they were supposed to win, trailing 2-1. Striker Luis Suarez who was supposed to be out of the game with an injury to allow for a little bit more recovery before playing England and Italy, suddenly was up and warming up.

Uruguay needed a goal and leaving a goal-scoring machine like Suarez on the bench didn’t appear to be a luxury Uruguay could afford anymore.

Unfortunately for Uruguay there was another goal to be scored, but it was for Costa Rica. Campbell sent in a beautiful through ball to Marcos Ureýa who was charging towards the end line outside the right post.

Somehow Ureýa was able to get a shot off from an incredibly tough angle with his momentum going out of bounds, and the ball cross over and around the keeper to the opposite post.

It just added insult to injury and was a demoralizing loss to Uruguay and made their road to the knockout round that much harder. They would likely need to defeat both England and Italy to have a chance at advancing and are headed into those games down two goals in the differential.

Things only got worse for Uruguay in the final minutes as Maxi Pereira of Uruguay was shown a red card for an unnecessary challenge on Campbell.

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