Costa Rica’s male national soccer team came into this Gold Cup as one of the favorites, especially considering that head-coach Oscar Ramírez decided to summon most of his main players for the Gold Cup, contrary to the majority of the teams in the tournament that chose to give a deserved rest to the majority of their best men.

However, after two games, Costa Rica has failed to deliver the expected results, the first game which was played on Friday against Honduras finished with a 1-0 in favor of Costa Rica, and today against Canada “La Sele” managed a 1-1 tie at the BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston, Texas.

Costa Rica started out playing well, and had some opportunities to score, however, it was Canada that opened the score at minute 25’ with a goal by Alphonso Davis, an error in Costa Rica’s defensive line allowed Davis to find himself alone with Costa Rica’s goalkeeper Patrick Pemberton and Davis took advantage of the opportunity.

After the goal, “La Sele” seemed to lose its structure, but at minute 40’ Costa Rican Francisco Calvo was able to tie the score with a header shot that Milan Borjan was unable to stop.

During the second half both teams played a very even game, the lack of action made it monotonous at times with the exception of a few failed attempts to score by both teams. Milan Borjan had an excellent performance during the entire game.

Costa Rica just doesn’t seem to convince, it wastes a lot of opportunities to score and simply doesn’t take control of the games.

Joel Campbell and Johan Venegas both had to leave the match after suffering injuries.

Canada and Costa Rica are tied in points but are in first and second place in the group respectively, Canada leads because it has scored more goals. Costa Rica’s next match is next Friday, July 15 against French Guiana.