The Costa Rica national football team, known as Los Ticos, represents one of Central America's most consistent footballing nations. Operating under CONCACAF, the team has long served as a source of pride and identity for a country where roughly 70% of the population follows the sport. Football in Costa Rica developed alongside a strong culture of sending players abroad, with the newspaper La Nación tracking these overseas "Legionnaires" annually since 1994.
The team's most celebrated era arrived at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Drawn into a group alongside three former world champions — Uruguay, Italy, and England — Costa Rica confounded expectations by winning the group outright, defeating Uruguay 3–1 and Italy 1–0 before drawing with England. In the knockout stage, a penalty shootout victory over Greece propelled them to the quarter-finals, a result widely regarded as the finest achievement in the nation's football history.
Costa Rica has regularly qualified for the FIFA World Cup, cementing its status as the dominant footballing force in Central America. The team's identity is shaped by its resourcefulness and collective spirit, often competing with limited resources against far larger footballing nations. Players developed domestically through the Costa Rican Primera División, run by UNAFUT, have consistently supplemented squads built around experienced legionnaires plying their trade across European and Latin American leagues.
The current decade has seen the team continue to compete in CONCACAF qualifying cycles, maintaining its place among the region's leading sides. Their 2014 run remains the defining chapter of Costa Rican football at the international level.