Costa Rica added its third match of the final phase of the Concacaf World Cup qualifiers without knowing the victory when drawing 0-0 with Honduras as a visitor, in a result that does little or nothing to keep the project of the Mexican coach Miguel Herrera at the helm of the Costa Rican team afloat.

After two draws with Nicaragua 1-1 away and with Haiti at home 3-3, it was expected that the Costa Rican team would show better things, but they remained unable to find the enemy goal and in the end they failed again at the right time to continue mired in a crisis in search of the World Cup ticket.

The complicated matter is that Costa Rica's result at the Francisco Morazan stadium in Honduran soil allows the team led by Colombian Reinaldo Rueda along with Haiti to lead the standings of Group C of the qualifying phase, while the eleven commanded by Piojo Herrera barely has three points when everyone had them as favorites to take over the qualification.

To make matters worse, Miguel Herrera, along with the three draws in the qualifiers, accumulate the draws in the Gold Cup with Mexico 0-0 and the United States 2-2, to the point that their last victory was in the same regional tournament of the Concacaf with the Dominican Republic 2-1.

The details of the tie

It was obvious to expect that Costa Rica would take precautions to visit Honduras, such as stopping a defensive scheme in which the Costa Ricans had little margin of terrain, trying to have Andy Najar and Joseph Rosales along with Luis Palma could help Romell Quioto and Jorge Benguche could generate danger in the goal of Keylor Navas, but in the end the attempts were many, but the effectiveness was zero by Reinaldo Rueda's eleven.

In this way, only a shot deflected by Benguche at 39 and another by Romell Quioto at 43 minutes,were the real approaches of the home team against the goal of the experienced Keylor Navas who maintained control of his goal.

However, Costa Rica could not take advantage of the long space and had to settle for a dangerous approach by Alonso Martinez being the highlight of the first half for the visitors' attack.

The same story

For the second half the story remained with the same script, with Honduras trying to generate the approaches that could give them the option of putting Costa Rica in intensive care, but the Ticos did not risk more than necessary and kept the key to their door well guarded.

For that reason everything was left in pure approaches like the one in the 70th minute, when the recently entered Luis Vega, shot deviated to the left of the Costa Rica goal, but without causing real damage against a Keylor Navas who always remained a spectator.

While Costa Rica came closer to change history with two actions by Alvaro Zamora in the 80th and 83rd minutes, when in the first action he crashed the ball into the crossbar and the second forced the Honduran goalkeeper to fight hard to save his goal.

Now Costa Rica will receive Nicaragua with the obligation to get a victory or say goodbye to the qualifying round, while Honduras will face Haiti in a result that could favor the interests of the Costa Rican squad directed by Miguel Herrera.