Colombia vs Costa Rica Betting Tips & Predictions

Colombia became the first team to qualify for the Copa America knockout stages on Wednesday morning when they earned a deserved 2-1 win over Paraguay. It was star player James Rodriguez that stood out for them. The attacking midfielder shook off a shoulder injury to play against Paraguay and set Carlos Bacca up with a corner after just 12 minutes and then added a goal of his own to the scoresheet with a fine finish after half an hour. Paraguay replied with a long range striker from Victor Ayala, as well as forcing David Ospina into a handful of excellent saves, but their job became increasingly difficult when they had a player sent off.

This took their tally to six points, with United States below them on three points and Costa Rica and Paraguay both having a point apiece. A draw against Costa Rica would be enough to win the group for them, but ideally they would like to extend their winning streak to six matches and earn the maximum of points in the group stages.

However, Colombia could opt to rest some key players such as James Rodriguez, Juan Cuadrado, and Carlos Bacca ahead of the more important knockout stages, so it will be interesting to see how they set up if they do rest their star performers.

Costa Rica opened their Copa America campaign with a goalless draw against Paraguay, but everything went wrong for them when they met host nation United States on Wednesday. Clint Dempsey scored a penalty in the first ten minutes then went on to set up two more goals in a stunning first half performance. Costa Rica were generally toothless, with an early miss from Joel Campbell and a head striking the woodwork in the second half being their only real threatening periods of the game. Graham Zusi added insult to injury as he notched a 4th for the host nation just before full time.

This was a very poor performance from them which highlighted their lack of quality. They do fine against the less talented sides in the world, as their organisation allows them to hold them at bay, but as soon as they face a side with some quality their defence is split apart.

Unfortunately for Costa Rica, Colombia are a side with quality in abundance going forward. I would think that James Rodriguez will want to continue to start as he searches for the golden boot, and Carlos Bacca won’t want to miss a scoring opportunity either. Whether both of these are risked is up for debate, but either way I think Colombia have enough quality to put Costa Rica to the sword, so odds of 2.025 for a Colombia -1 Asian Handicap Win look good value to me. I’m going for a 3-0 correct score prediction at 9/1 as well.