🥇 MOTM: Costa Rica's unlikely hero | OneFootball

Group E is well and truly in the balance after Costa Rica overcame Japan at the Ahmed bin Ali Stadium.

And our Man of the Match is …

Keysher Fuller (Costa Rica)

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Keysher Fuller had only scored two international goals before today so it’s fair to say his 81st-minute winner against Japan will be one he remembers fondly, as will all the travelling Costa Rica contingent.

His country’s World Cup campaign seemed to be over before it had ever truly begun after Spain put them to the sword with a 7-0 thrashing on matchday one.

You won’t have found many match-goers tipping anything but a Japanese victory on Sunday and yet as the match unfolded, the unlikely became the reality.

Fuller did what he was selected to do for the most part, winning five ground duels and producing four clearances at right-back as Costa Rica held firm to frustrate Japan’s blunt attack.

But his intervention at the other end was the decisive moment in a game that won’t live long in the memory, except for maybe Fuller’s.

The Herediano defender received the ball into his path from Yeltsin Tejeda at the edge of the box before getting it out of his feet and lofting it in the direction of the top corner with his left foot.

It was a well-hit effort but one that Japan goalkeeper Shūichi Gonda will feel he could’ve done better with after getting a hand to it on its way into the net.

Fuller and Costa Rica won’t care about that as suddenly there are three points on the board and their World Cup journey might not be coming to it’s final stop just yet.