They knew beforehand that they only had to avoid a six-goal loss to make it to Qatar 2022 directly rather than go into a play-off with the winner of the Oceania group, New Zealand.Christian Pulisic, following his hat-trick in a 5-1 win against Panama in the previous qualifier, started the game in the Costa Rican capital San Jose and played 84 minutes. The home side’s goals were scored early in the second half from set-pieces. Paris St-Germain goalkeeper Keylor Navas kept the USA at bay with several saves.Despite the win, it is Costa Rica who now play off against New Zealand having finished fourth in the eight-team CONCACAF group. The United States end up in third after their 14 games, with Canada and Mexico above them as the other automatic qualifiers.