United States-Costa Rica: World Cup Qualifier Preview

After clinching an automatic bid to the 2010 FIFA World Cup with a 3-2 win in Honduras on Oct. 10, the United States national team will head back home to RFK Stadium in Washington DC to take on Costa Rica.

Costa Rica will be heading into this match holding the third and final spot in CONCACAF that ensures automatic qualification and would clinch the third and final automatic CONCACAF position in the World Cup with a win or a Honduras loss.

The last time that these two nations met, Costa Rica dominated the United States by a 3-1 score in the Estadio Ricardo Saprissa Ayma in San Jose, Costa Rica on June 3.

Here is a preview of the match from both the American side and the Costa Rican side, and what each country must do in order to succeed.

United States

After clinching a berth in the 2010 World Cup on Oct. 10, the United States will now be looking to finish the job and finish first in CONCACAF with a win on Oct. 14, as they currently lead Mexico by one point in CONCACAF.

In the match, the United States will retain the same roster that recently won at Honduras, although it is unsure who will be starting for Bob Bradley during this match.

However, we know that Charlie Davies will not be able to play due to a car accident that he was involved in on Oct. 13, which took the life of one of the three occupants and caused Davies to go through five hours of surgery shortly after the car accident.

In this match, be sure to see that the United States will play hard to finish first in CONCACAF, as Bradley has already stated that he wants the US to finish first.

You could also expect to see that the United States will want to gain revenge from their loss in June at Costa Rica, as that loss caused much criticism of the United States team, and a win here could force Costa Rica into a playoff with the fifth place finisher in CONMEBOL.

Finally, the United States must find a way to shut down Alvaro Saborio and Bryan Ruiz, as each of them has four goals in World Cup qualifying; they will be the keys to the Costa Rica attack.

If the United States could do all of this, they will have a great chance of winning and finishing first overall in CONCACAF.

Costa Rica

The current holder of the third and final automatic bid to the World Cup out of CONCACAF, Costa Rica will be looking to clinch a berth in the 2010 World Cup with a win in this match.

During their last World Cup qualifying match, Costa Rica beat Trinidad and Tobago by a 4-0 score to move into the third and final automatic qualification position in CONCACAF.

In this match, you could be sure that Costa Rica will come out believing that they will be the first squad to win in the United States, as the US squad is currently 4-0-0 in qualifying.

Also, you could expect to see the Costa Rican attack, led by Saborio and Ruiz, go on a full-out attack against the American squad, as they will believe that they can score on an American defense that conceded two goals against Honduras on Oct. 10 and conceded three goals at Costa Rica back in June.

Finally, expect to see lots of fight out of Costa Rica in this match, as their World Cup hopes will ride on this match, and a loss here could be costly to their World Cup dreams.

If Costa Rica could do all of this, they will have a great chance of winning this match and clinching the final automatic CONCACAF World Cup position.

Finally, expect a great final World Cup qualifier between the United States and Costa Rica on Saturday, as both of these countries have something important to fight for.