Costa Rica's Victory in a Not-so-Exciting Match Against China - 2002-06-04

Costa Rica's Victory in a Not-so-Exciting Match Against China - 2002-06-04. Today, as our colleague Ali Sarshar noted, was the day for the Asian teams in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, with three teams from the Far East entering the competition, among which China presented a weak image of Asian football. The Chinese national football team faced Costa Rica in its first World Cup appearance and lost 2-0 after 90 minutes of battle that lacked excitement and creativity. No goals were scored in the first half. Although Costa Rica had a good opportunity to score in the 20th minute, they could not capitalize on it. At that time, Mauricio Solis's shot from a tight angle was saved by Jiang Jin, the Chinese goalkeeper. In the 26th minute, Chinese defender Sun Jihai, one of the stars of the team, left the field due to injury. In the 61st minute of the game, Costa Rican Ronald Gomez managed to score the first goal for his team after a back-and-forth near the Chinese goal. Four minutes later, Costa Rica earned a corner kick that reached Gomez, who then passed it to Mauricio Wright. Wright, in a good position near the goalpost, headed it into the Chinese net. The match between Costa Rica and China was a physical one, and throughout the game, the Greek referee showed 4 yellow cards to Costa Rican players and 3 yellow cards to Chinese footballers. More than 27,000 spectators watched the match at the Guangzhou Stadium in South Korea, which was also wet due to recent rainfall. With this victory, Costa Rica topped Group C ahead of Brazil thanks to a better goal difference.