Portugal's under-20 women secured a 3-0 win over Costa Rica in the third Group Stage match of the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup on 13 September 2026. The result left the hosts two points clear in second place, while Costa Rica slumped to a fourth-place finish with zero points from three games. And here's the thing — you could see the pattern forming from the opening whistle.
Álvaro Marques opened the scoring in the seventh minute, capitalising on Portugal's early territorial advantage. Costa Rica's M. Solano picked up a yellow card fifteen minutes in, a sign of the pressure building on their back line. By then, the visitors had managed just one shot off target, and their goalkeeper was already watching too much of the action from the wrong side of the penalty area.
C. Tristao doubled the lead in the thirty-fourth minute, when a series of Portuguese attacks finally produced something meaningful. The hosts had piled up 123 attacks by that point, though they created zero big chances — a characteristic display of quantity over quality. Costa Rica responded with a substitution in the forty-sixth minute, bringing on R. Recio, but it was too little, too late to shift the momentum.
Marques completed his brace in the fifty-eighth minute, and the match was effectively over. Portugal made four substitutions around the hour mark, including both scorers, while Costa Rica had only one change to offer. The visitors' yellow cards continued to accumulate, with N. Medina cautioned in the forty-eighth minute and L. Paniagua in the eighty-sixth.
The statistics told the story without embellishment. Portugal dominated possession at 72 per cent, registering seven shots on target to Costa Rica's zero. The Costa Rican goalkeeper made four saves — all from attempts that somehow found the target despite a 0 per cent shots accuracy for his side. In contrast, Portugal attempted twenty shots, with thirteen missing the target entirely.
The result changed nothing in Portugal's trajectory but confirmed Costa Rica's elimination from the tournament. The hosts finished on four points from three matches, one win, one draw and one defeat. Costa Rica's campaign ended with three losses from three games, a run that included heavy defeats to North Korea and Colombia.