Costa Rica V Serbia World Cup 2018

Costa Rica V Serbia

(Synopsis in red)

Pregame bets:

Expect Costa Rica to continue where they left off at the last World Cup, hopefully with more goals and more great counter attacking football that won them so many admirers in 2014. Serbia are muck so I wouldn’t be surprised to see CR grab a few here.

€4.00 Single
Costa Rica 4/1

So I also put them in a treble with the other two games, for a goal crazy day at today’s WC!!

€3.00 Treble
Costa Rica v Serbia – Over 2.5 Goals 31/20
Germany v Mexico – Over 2.5 Goals 13/20
Brazil v Switzerland -Over 2.5 Goals 3/4

Full betting review here>https://www.thisdrinkinglife.com/top-bets-of-the-world-cup-2018/

Hold my hands up, got that prediction totally wrong.

Beers: Group E of Beer World Cup:

World Cup of Beer Group E

Imperial Beer, the “little eagle” from Costa Rica will be up against a Serbian craft beer kabinet beer. Might be an interesting tussle.

Bit of a contrast in beer styles, an IPA versus a regular lager, but I will go with the Imperial Lager as it was easier to stomach, what with the Kabinet that bit too hoppy for my liking

PreGame:

Little Costa Rica were my favourite team in the last World Cup, playing some great counter attacking football, with passion and no fear for the big names, going on an amazing run that was just about halted by the Dutch in a penalty shootout in the last eight of the World Cup. Brilliant. I’d settle for even half of that excitement again!

Keylor Navas and Joel Campbell made names for themselves in the last World Cup and are back again for another adventure. Otherwise they dont really have any other stand out players in the squad. But is that any different to last time round? I certainly didn’t expect them to get up to much in 2014 and they ended up causing shock after shock, so who knows what gems lie in their squad this time round.

I fully expect Costa Rica to give Serbia a hard time today, and wouldn’t be at all surprised if they came away with all three points. They really need to start with a win, as they have Brazil up after and I fear for them in that game.

Had the displeasure of watching, on the box, Serbia’s two games versus the Republic of Ireland in the qualifiers. Serbia drew at home, 2-2 and won 1-0 in Dublin, but overall they didn’t play well at all. They looked very brittle and disjointed and although they had some good technical players they were not a team that I think I would cause too many problems for more established teams like Germany and co.

They have some quality in the squad though, most notably Nemanja Matic of Liverpool, Luka Milivojević of Palace, Nemanja Matić of Man United, and lastly Aleksandar Mitrovic on fire for promotion champions Fulham, scoring 12 out of 17 games. Good players for sure, but can they gel together for Serbia on the big stage? They also have some of the squad from their Under 20 World Cup winning team so that should help.

But these top players mostly play well for their clubs, they can fit into systems and formations in the various leagues around Europe, but they never seem to click for their national team, and I dont expect them to do so in this World Cup. I dont fancy them at all.

A more detailed review on Costa Rica here and on Serbia here

Costa Rica really never got motoring today, and the Serbian central defence were rock solid. Fair dues to Serbia, got the win and now look to forward to getting another point in the next two games to have a real chance of progression.

Started off lively for both teams, chances at both ends inside the first ten minutes, with Costa Rica having a real chance in the 13th minute with a free header that they really should have scored from.

But Costa Rica were fannying around for long spells of the game, not really doing anything of substance, particularly Guzmán who was awful and should have got substituted much earlier than the 72nd minute. He also gave away the silly free that lead to the goal. Costa Rica were also quite a dirty team, constantly fouling every time they didn’t have the ball.

And what a goal it was from Kolarov, excellent goal. If he hadn’t of scored I doubt Serbia would have got a goal at all, as they missed a few simple chances today and they didn’t seem to have their shooting boots on.

The central defence of Serbia were brilliant, in fact the whole back four were quite solid. It was going to take a lot of skill to get behind them and unfortunately Costa Rica didn’t have that today.

Music to get you in the mood

Malpais – Contramarea (Costa Rica) V Irish Stew of Sindidun – Heavier Than Sin (Serbia)