Luis Fernando Suarez has known as for extra of the identical after seeing Costa Rica maintain their World Cup dream alive to arrange a frightening showdown with Germany.
Keysher Fuller’s late strike handed Suarez’s aspect a 1-0 victory over Japan, whose 2-1 win over the Germans within the opening spherical of Group E fixtures had blown the group huge open.
Now they may go head-to-head with Hansi Flick’s males on the Al Bayt Stadium on Thursday night realizing their destiny will probably be in their very own arms.
Talking at his post-match press convention, Suarez stated: “We’re nonetheless alive. We weren’t lifeless yesterday and now we’re very a lot on this, alive nonetheless.
“Now we have to consider the subsequent match on Thursday, which is able to clearly be simply as powerful as at the moment’s recreation.
“We must apply the identical strain as up to now two video games, however we’re alive, that’s the primary factor.”
Costa Rica’s victory was all of the extra outstanding because it got here simply 4 days after they have been trounced 7-0 by Spain, a reality which was not misplaced on Suarez, who had nothing however reward for his gamers.
He stated: “I imagine that the primary factor right here is the flexibility of this group. These gamers, to do such superb issues like at the moment – I’m not going to speak about technical or tactical elements, there will probably be extra acceptable instances to try this.
“At present, I must worth and respect what they’ve carried out to get this consequence. Costa Rica, we needed to face many challenges.
We’re nonetheless alive. We weren’t lifeless yesterday and now we’re very a lot on this, alive nonetheless
Luis Fernando Suarez
“Nonetheless, we firmly believed and needed to do issues nicely to be 100 per cent dedicated for our nation to play nicely in opposition to an opponent – and we now have to say this – an opponent similar to Japan.
“You’ll be able to say sure, we received in opposition to Japan, however we now have to stress that we received in opposition to this nationwide group of Japan, they’re taking part in so nicely throughout this World Cup. That’s one thing that we have to respect enormously.”
It proved a sobering day for Japan boss Hajime Moriyasu as the enjoyment of that shock win over Germany ebbed away, leaving his aspect realizing they could must do one thing particular in opposition to Spain of their last group fixture to progress.
Moriyasu stated: “Spain is a robust group. Nonetheless, from the start we have been considering from three matches, we might attempt to advance, so we are going to simply go for good preparation for an excellent match for subsequent time.”