12.14pm BST
Costa Rica (a devastating 5-4-1): Navas; Calvo, Acosta, Gonzalez, Duarte, Gamboa; Bryan, Guzman, Borges, Venegas; Urena.
Serbia (a third quarter-heavy 4-2-3-1): Stojkovic; Ivanovic, Milenkovic, Tosic, Kolarov; Matic, Milivojevic; Tadic, Sergej, Ljajic; Mitrovic.
11.47am BST
Everyone deserves to be spoilt once in a quadrennial period, and as such, I have no compunction whatsoever in saying I want an Oompah-Loompah Daddy it’s about bloody time we were served a decent game. Because, brilliant though Spain-Portugal was, it was all of 36 hours ago. I mean.
And we’ve decent reason to hope that today’s first attempt might just be the thing. Costa Rica have a proud tradition of attacking football, they need the points, and they might not want to invite Serbia onto them. That’s because Serbia scored 20 times in 10 qualifiers and, particularly in midfield, have players with skill, imagination and wit.
Continue reading...