World Cup

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Attendance: 51,179

World Cup | Quarter-Finals

Jul 5, 2014 at 9pm UK

Netherlands
0-0
Costa Rica

FT
(aet)

Netherlands win 4-3 on penalties

Celso Borges: 'We put our heart into the World Cup'

By Simon Sinclair, Reporter | 07 July 2014

Costa Rica midfielder Celso Borges admits that his side worked extremely hard and poured their heart into the World Cup to reach the last eight of the tournament.

Costa Rica midfielder Celso Borges has revealed that he and his teammates poured their heart into the World Cup to reach the quarter-finals of the tournament.

Jorge Luis Pinto's side were predicted not to make it out of the group stage as they faced Uruguay, Italy and England in Group D.

However, they shocked the world by beating the Azzurri and Oscar Tabarez's side to win the group, while also claiming the scalp of Greece in the second round, before their penalty-shootout defeat to the Netherlands in the last eight.

Borges is quoted as saying by The Mirror: "Every World Cup has a revelation during the tournament. I'm really happy it was us. The cards we were given before the World Cup, everybody thought we had no chance, so to come through all that shows a lot of mental stability and that we have good players also.

"After what we have done, we deserve to be called good players. That's why we should be happy. Yes, we are well organised. But that's down to almost three years of training with the same principles, the same training methods, so we become confident and trust the system.

"Some of us had personal work to do. The minute we qualified we had tests to see what we were lacking. We had personal work on resistance and strength. We were all working for six months. There's no magic to it. We just put a lot of heart into it."

Costa Rica will overtake England in the FIFA World Rankings at the end of the competition.