Haiti vs Costa Rica Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Costa Rica were the best performing side from the CONCACAF region at the last World Cup and they are making good progress towards reaching the next one. 10 points from 4 games so far, including an impressive win in Panama, puts them in a really strong position to qualify for the next stage and they only need a point from this game to be sure of that. They shouldn’t have much trouble getting that and showed they are still a force to be reckoned with at Copa America when they beat Colombia and drew with Paraguay but were perhaps a little unfortunate to not make it out of their group.

Their problems in recent times have been against the weaker sides though and they failed to win a game at the CONCACAF Gold Cup last year. They also stuttered to a 1-0 win when they hosted Haiti in the reverse fixture in this group, so the hosts will know they are capable of competing with the Central Americans. Haiti were very much the outsiders at Copa America and were found out of their depth as they lost all their group games but back home in Port-au-Prince, they can be stubborn opponents and they rarely lose home World Cup qualifiers.

Costa Rica will give them the respect they deserve and are experts it would seem at doing just enough. They won’t be too fussed at how they make it but they will want to ensure they are in the final group phase, preferably without things going to the final game next week. Haiti’s hopes of qualification are already hanging by a thread and even a win isn’t likely to stop them being eliminated this weekend but they will do their utmost to make a game of this.

The visitors don’t need to chase the game and most likely won’t but Haiti are very short up front and are yet to score in this group with all their matches finishing either in 0-0 draws or 1-0 defeats. Given that it’s hard to see them troubling a well-organised Costa Rican defence and backing this to end in a 0-0 draw at 6/1 looks to offer value.