Brazil vs Costa Rica Odds
| Brazil Odds | -900 |
| Costa Rica Odds | +1800 |
| Draw | +900 |
| Over/Under | 2.5 (-250 / +187) |
| Day | Time | Monday | 9 p.m. ET |
| How To Watch | FS1 |
| Odds as of Monday morning via DraftKings | |
Brazil open their tournament as big favorites over Costa Rica.
Brazil went through a bad run during World Cup Qualifying, but that was under a different manager with different philosophies. Now they are under Dorvial Júnior who is one of the most well liked managers in Brazil. They've had some good results in qualifying under him and are set up pretty well to make a deep run in this tournament.
Costa Rica barely made it to Copa America after outlasting Honduras in the final qualifier. While Costa Rica do have decent results against some of the lower end CONCACAF teams, whenever they have to take a step up in class, they tend to get dominated. This is about as high of a step up in class that you can have opening your tournament against Brazil.
Find my Brazil vs Costa Rica picks and betting preview below.
Brazil
Brazil are absolutely loaded with talent all over the pitch and they are now playing in a tactical-less system that suits that talent really well. Under Fernando Diniz, they were playing a more relationism-type of system that simply didn't work for a squad that was entirely playing in Europe where positionalism is most common. For the six qualifiers with limited training time, it completely failed, as the players were not able to play his system effectively like his Fluminense teams, and in turn it ended up being a complete disaster.
Things have changed since Dorival Júnior took over, as he has Brazil looking to play more direct, which is going to give everyone in this tournament a lot of problems with a front three of Rodrygo, Vinicius Jr. and Raphinha. That really benefits both Vinicius Jr. and Rodrygo, who play a very similar style under Carlo Ancelotti at Real Madrid.
That style of play also makes Brazil incredibly dangerous when they get into a positive game state because they can sit back in their 4-4-2 and play in transition, especially against teams like Costa Rica, who are a really bad when you get them out of their low defensive block.
Costa Rica
Nothing has really changed for Costa Rica since the 2022 World Cup. In the qualifiers to get into Copa America, they got destroyed 6-1 on aggregate by Panama and then beat Honduras in the final qualification playoff to get here.
Their style of play is still very similar, as they will sit in a 5-4-1 low defensive block out of possession, but they are really spread out and allow a lot room in the half spaces. That is really bad news against Brazil who have two of the best in the world operating in the half space in Lucas Paqueta and Bruno Guimarães.
In possession, they will mainly rely on transitions, getting the ball out wide to find 1 v 1 situations to eventually send in a cross. While pretty much their entire roster is playing domestically in Costa Rica, their main striker Manfred Ugalde plays for Spartak Moscow in the Russian Premier League. Ugalde has only made 12 appearances and has failed to score at the club level.
Brazil vs Costa Rica
Prediction
This is a really bad matchup for Costa Rica. At the 2022 World Cup, they had to play two teams that are on Brazil's level in Spain and Germany. They lost 7-0 to Spain and conceded over six expected goals to Germany. The problem for them, along with a lot of passive low block teams is once you get into a negative game state, you are forced to play more aggressive and all your opponent a lot of space.
That is when things tend to get out of hand and now that Brazil is playing a more transition-based system, it's going to get really bad for Costa Rica once they fall behind.
So, I really like Brazil's spread of -2.5 at +115.
Pick: Brazil -2.5 (+115 via bet365)
