Costa Rica vs Germany - 2022 World Cup Betting Guide

Costa Rica Team Info – A Team to Keep an Eye On

Costa Rica has been known to cause trouble for the top football teams. In 2014, they were drawn into a group with England, Italy, and Uruguay. All three of those countries were title-winning nations and Costa Rica looked far out of their depth. They beat Uruguay and Italy, and drew with England in their final game to go to the top of the table. In their next match, they beat Greece, and then when they faced the Netherlands in the semi-finals, they very nearly beat the Dutch team, but lost on penalties.

Much of this was thanks to their hard defensive work, done by goalkeeper Keylor Navas, and defenders Giancarlo Gonzalez, Cristian Gamboa, Bryan Oviedo, and Francisco Calvo. These defenders are all aged over 30, and whilst there are younger and faster options such as Keysher Fuller, Juan Pablo Vargas, and Ronald Matarrita, most of the younger players have significantly less experience. The same can be said of Costa Rica's midfield, where Celso Borges and captain Bryan Ruiz have just under 300 caps combined, but they are aged 34 and 37 years old. Gerson Torres, Randall Leal, Allan Cruz, and Jimmy Marin are far younger, but none has played more than 26 caps, and they have only scored a handful of goals each, if that. However, there is no problem with Costa Rica's attack, where Joel Campbell, who plays in the Mexican MX Liga, has scored 25 goals in 117 caps. His club statistics are not particularly impressive, but he has had more success internationally, where he scored 4 from 8 games this year.

Germany Team Info – A Team Seeking to Make Amends

The 2022 World Cup will be an important one for Germany, as they look to establish themselves as one of the top teams in the world. After winning the World Cup in 2014, Germany then had a shocking exit in the group stage of the 2018 World Cup. They suffered further humiliation when they were knocked out in the round of 16 of the 2020 European Championship. Now, after replacing their long-time manager Joachim Low for Hansi Flick, Germany may be a possible World Cup title contender. They did not have a necessarily difficult group in the UEFA World Cup qualifiers, but they did not take any prisoners. Germany won 9 of their 10 games, scoring 36 goals and only conceding 4.

Their long-time goalkeeper Manuel Neuer played in 6 of the games and did not concede a single goal. The German defence is also extremely fierce, with Antonio Rudiger, Matthias Ginter, Niklas Sule, Thilo Kehrer, and Lukas Klostermann. In the midfield, they can use Ilkay Gundogan, Joshua Kimmich, Leon Goretzka, Julain Brandt, Kai Havertz, or Marco Reus. Thomas Muller will lead the German attack, and try to add to his goal tally of 44 goals in 116 games for Germany. Next to him, Germany can play Timo Werner, Leroy Sane, Serge Gnabry, or the highly rated youngster Jamal Musiala.

Costa Rica vs Germany Head-to-head

The two teams have only played against each other once before. Germany played against Costa Rica in the opening match of the 2006 World Cup, which was hosted by Germany. They beat Costa Rica 4-2.

Costa Rica vs Germany Betting Preview

Going on what happened in the last meeting between the two, and how many goals Germany scored in their qualifiers, most will predict this game to be rife with goals. There are plenty of bets you can make on how many goals will be scored, or will not be scored in the game. There are also many markets relating to how a team may win this game, and these can come at either shorter odds or they can have gigantic odds.

Asian Handicaps

Handicaps are bets on a team to win the game by a certain margin or more. You will see a list of negative numbers with increasing odds, and the one you choose will be subtracted from the score of the team you back to win, and they will need to have won the game with the adjusted scoreline. Alternatively, you can apply a positive handicap, which will be added to the score of your chosen team, but these will come at shorter odds.

If you back the favourite, Germany, to beat Costa Rica with a handicap of -2.5 then you will need Germany to win the game by 3 goals or more. You can also apply a handicap of -3 which will require Germany to win by 4 or more, but if they only beat Costa Rica by 3 goals then the game ends in a draw and your money will be returned.

If you bet on Germany with a handicap of -2.75 then your stake will be split in two and half your stake will go on a handicap of -2.5 whilst the other half will go on a handicap of -3. If Germany beat Costa Rica by 4 or more goals then both halves of your bet win and you can receive your full winnings. If Germany only manage to beat Costa Rica by 3 goals, then the -2.5 half of your bet will pay out in full whilst the -3 bet will be void and you will receive that half of your money back.

Over/Under Total Goals

Total goals is a bet on how many goals will be scored by both teams at the end of a game. It does not matter whether Germany or Costa Rica score all the goals, or both teams score, as long as the number of goals at the end of the game fall into the range defined by your bet. The bet uses the over/under format, whereby you will need to pick a betting line and then bet on the game to finish with over or under that number of goals. If you think that the match between Costa Rica and Germany will end with plenty of goals, you may want to bet on over 4.5.

Win Margin

This is a bet on which team will win and the exact winning margin they will win by. For example, if you were to pick Germany to win by a margin of 3, then you would need them to win the match 3-0, 4-1, 5-2, and so on.

And Loads More

Your options do not end there, as we have masses more bets lined up for you on the game between Costa Rica and Germany. You can bet on aspects such as Germany to win the first half, Costa Rica to win either half, Germany to score the first goal, Costa Rica to keep a clean sheet, Costa Rica to score in both halves, Germany to reverse the result, and a tonne of similar selections.

If you want to go for bets with longer odds, you can jump to our match combos, where we combine the bets mentioned above with matchbets, double chance, total goals, and more.

When placing your World Cup match bets, it is always important to keep track of how much you are spending. You should avoid betting with more money than you can afford to lose. If you need help with making a budget or finding a strategy to control your gambling, we recommend you to check out gambleaware.co.uk where there is a lot of helpful advice.