Costa Rica vs. Germany to Feature 1st All-Female Referee Team at Men's World Cup

Thursday's FIFA World Cup match between Costa Rica and Germany will feature the first all-female refereeing team in the history of the men's World Cup.

FIFA announced in May this would be the first men's World Cup to include female referees. Stéphanie Frappart, Salima Mukansanga and Yoshimi Yamashita were included in the pool of 36 referees, along with Neuza Back, Karen Díaz Medina and Kathryn Nesbitt in the assistant referee pool.

"As always, the criteria we have used is 'quality first' and the selected match officials represent the highest level of refereeing worldwide," Pierluigi Collina, the FIFA Referees Committee chairman, said in May. "The 2018 World Cup was very successful, partly because of the high standard of refereeing, and we will do our best to be even better in a few months in Qatar."

Frappart will make her men's World Cup debut. She became the first woman to referee a men's Champions League match in 2020, having worked the 2019 UEFA Super Cup. In May, she was also the first woman to referee the French Cup final.

Plenty of fans will closely follow Thursday's match.

Germany, four-time World Cup winners, is bottom of Group E and needs to beat Costa Rica to have any hope of advancing to the round of 16. A second successive exit in the group stage would be a stunning result.