🏆 Costa Rica national football team 2025 Gold Cup Squads

The Costa Rica national football team (Spanish: Selección de fútbol de Costa Rica) represents Costa Rica in men's international football, which is governed by the Federación Costarricense de Fútbol (English: Costa Rican Football Federation), the governing body for football in Costa Rica founded in 1921. It has been an affiliate member of FIFA since 1927 and a founding affiliate member of CONCACAF since 1961. Regionally, it is an affiliate member of UNCAF in the Central American Zone.

From 1938 to 1961, it was a member of CCCF, the former governing body of football in Central America and Caribbean and a predecessor confederation of CONCACAF, and also a member of PFC, the former unified confederation of the Americas, from 1946 to 1961.

Costa Rica has qualified for the FIFA World Cup six times, it is one of four CONCACAF teams to have advanced to the knockout stage, reaching the quarter-finals in 2014 and also reaching the round of 16 in 1990. It also participated twice in the Olympic Games (1980 and 1984).

Costa Rica has participated twenty-three times in CONCACAF's premier continental competition, it is the third most successful team in its confederation and the most successful Central American team, winning 3 CONCACAF Championship titles (1963, 1969 and 1989), becoming the first champions of the competition in 1963. The team's best performance under the CONCACAF Gold Cup format was finishing as runners-up in 2002. It has participated four times in League A of the CONCACAF Nations League, finishing in fourth place in the 2021 finals.

It has participated six times in the Copa América, reaching the quarter-finals (2001 and 2004), and also participated twice in the Panamerican Championship, finishing in third place in 1956.

Regionally, the team won 7 CCCF Championship titles and 8 Copa Centroamericana titles.

Costa Rica has the all-time highest average Football Elo Ranking in Central America with 1597.1, and the all-time highest Football Elo Ranking in Central America, with 1806 in 2014.

Since the late 1980s, the team has continuously been visible as a solidly competitive side and has been widely considered to be the second or third best team in the CONCACAF, with a prominent performance in the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy, making it to the knockout stage in their debut after finishing second in their group during the first phase, below Brazil. They also qualified for the 2002 and 2006 World Cups. In 2014, Costa Rica achieved their best performance in history by finishing first in their group that consisted of three former World Cup champions: Uruguay, Italy, and England. During the round 16 they defeated Greece 5–3 via a penalty shoot-out after a 1–1 draw. Moreover, during their match against the Greek team, Keylor Navas saved more than 15 shots. They reached the quarter-finals for the first time but were defeated by the Netherlands, also in a penalty shoot-out (3–4) after a scoreless draw on 5 July. Both their 2018 and 2022 World Cup campaigns ended in a fourth place group stage exit, with their only points coming from a 2–2 draw against Switzerland in 2018 and a 1–0 win over Japan in 2022.