Japan v Costa Rica – what the stats say

Japan have never lost in four previous meetings with Costa Rica in all competitions (W3 D1), netting exactly three goals in all three victories in this run.

Costa Rica won their only previous Fifa World Cup game against an Asian nation, beating China 2-0 in the 2002 edition.

After beating Germany 2-1 on MD1, Japan are looking to win back-to-back World Cup matches for the first time since 2002 (v Russia and Tunisia), while they have never won both of their first two fixtures of a single edition at the finals.

Costa Rica lost their opening match of the 2022 World Cup 7-0 to Spain, conceding as many goals in that match as their previous eight games at the tournament combined beforehand.

Since beating both Uruguay and Italy in their group in 2014, Costa Rica are winless in seven World Cup games (D4 L3), failing to score in five of those matches.

Against Spain on MD1, Costa Rica didn’t manage a single shot, with this being the second instance of a side failing to record a shot in a World Cup match since Opta have this data (from 1966), with the other occasion also Costa Rica against Brazil in 1990. Meanwhile, Japan faced 26 shots in their 2022 World Cup opener against Germany, the most they have ever faced in a match at the tournament.

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Five of Japan's 22 goals at the World Cup have been scored by substitutes, with two of those coming in their 2-1 win against Germany on MD1. Three of their five sub goals have been scored within six minutes of the player coming on, with Ritsu Doan equalising against Germany after four minutes and nine seconds.

Should they feature in this match, Keylor Navas, Celso Borges and Bryan Ruiz would all make their 10th World Cup appearances for Costa Rica and would be the first players to hit that total for the nation.

Ritsu Doan and Takuma Asano scored Japan's goals in their 2-1 win over Germany on MD1 – the only Japanese player to score in consecutive World Cup games is Junichi Inamoto, who scored in their opening two games of the 2002 edition.

Takuma Asano had five of Japan's 12 shots against Germany on MD1 – no other player had more than one. Only Shinji Kagawa has ever had more attempts in a single World Cup match for Japan (6 v Colombia in 2014).