CONCACAF/CONMEBOL Playoff: Leg 1

Uruguay have a foot and four toes into South Africa; Costa Rica are hanging by merely a thread. So go the verdicts from the press in both countries. Uruguay asserted themselves on a substandard pitch, used their physicality and their defensive discipline to pin the Costa Ricans in their own area and disconnect the Tico midfield from their strikers, and were opportunistic at the right time.