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Get to know all the players in Costa Rica's squad for the 2023 Women's World Cup in New Zealand and Australia.
Goalkeepers
Name: Noelia Bermúdez
Date of Birth: September 20, 1994
Club: Liga Deportiva Alajuelense, Costa Rica
The star goalkeeper of Alajuelense, the biggest club in Costa Rica in recent years. At home she has also played for Saprissa and had a significant stint with Deportivo La Coruña and Levante – she was voted goalkeeper of the year in Spain in 2016. Then after a short spell with Valencia she returned home. She combines her passion for the game with her studies in gastronomy. Social media has also been a great support in promoting her own business, where her 'crunchies' are famous among her followers. She is also known for raising her voice, especially for the LGBTQ+ community and in defence of women's rights. She wrote on Instagram recently, highlighting how “Happiness and pride of belonging to a team surge when people feel heard, visible and important, when they feel they contribute in a valuable and meaningful way to the collective outcome.”
Name: Daniela Solera
Date of Birth: July 21, 1997
Club: Sporting FC, Costa Rica
She was a big hit in Colombian football, having won the championship with Atlético Huilá in 2018 and being one of the few Costa Ricans to play in the Copa Libertadores. That was her first stint abroad, which she followed up with a year in Finland and time in Spain before returning to Costa Rica. The turning point in her life came when she lost consciousness during a game in Colombia, leading to real concerns as she was admitted to intensive care. Thankfully, she made a successful recovery. She has had ups and downs in her career and struggled to gain a place in the national team but is now a permanent part of the squad. She kept a clean sheet for the group game win against Trinidad and Tobago in the 2022 Concacaf W Championship that secured their place at the World Cup.
Name: Priscilla Tapia
Date of Birth: May 2, 1991
Club: Saprissa FF, Costa Rica
One of the veterans in the national team, Tapia has been a key player and witness to the growth of the women's game in Costa Rica. She has played for five clubs at home and had a brief stint in Colombia with Deportivo Cali in 2021. Her breakthrough came with the Under-17 national team, with a string of memorable performances. She faced 73 shots from Germany, North Korea, and Ghana and conceded only eight goals. At one stage Tapia took a break from the game and worked at a supermarket in her hometown of Puntarenas. Although this caused her to miss her country’s debut at the World Cup, in 2015, she quickly returned to playing first division football at home, producing outstanding performances once again.
Defenders
Name: Gabriela Guillén
Date of Birth: March 1st, 1992
Club: Liga Deportiva Alajuelense, Costa Rica
Strong, tenacious, mature, a captain on the field. Guillén can be described in many ways. She also gives her country genuine pace down the left. She has played in youth World Cups as well as being one of the ground-breakers to feature in 2015, Costa Rica’s first World Cup. She has been a vocal advocate for women's rights and the LGBTQ+ community. Her social media platforms have been the ideal place for her fight against stereotypes, and she has repeatedly demonstrated her duty to raise her voice. She once told ESPN, "Whenever we have a platform to raise awareness or shout to the heavens about something, we will do it. As football players, we have been given this space to shed light on topics that were once taboo. We will always try to support these movements, such as the comments that girls can't play football or that gymnastics is only for girls."
Name: Carolina Angulo Tabash
Date of birth: July 29, 1993
Club: Club Sport Herediano, Costa Rica
The player best known as 'Tabash' is a strong prototype, always providing security in her team's defense. She also possesses a powerful shot. She has competed for teams such as Saprissa, Sporting FC, and Herediano, in addition to representing the national team.
Name: Valeria del Campo
Date of Birth: February 15, 2000
Club: Monterrey, Mexico
A lover of the outdoors – including cave diving and canyoning – she was the first Costa Rican and first foreign woman footballer to win a Mexican football championship when she helped Monterrey win the “apertura” championship in 2021-22, having joined them in 2021. Recognised for her strength of mind on the field, at 1.57m the centre-back is not the tallest but she can go in hard in the tackle. Played for Deportivo Saprissa before her move north. She won her first cap aged 19 at the Pan-American Games.
Name: Daniela Cruz
Date of Birth: March 8, 1991
Club: Atlas FC, Mexico
Cruz says she is the odd one out in her family with a talent for football because none of her relations had ever played the sport. She was a standout player for Saprissa and quickly earned the attention of coaches at national youth level. In 2010 she went to study in the United States and returned home three years later. She then made the move to play for Red Star Belgrade. That was a year-long stay that did not end well as she got injured so badly she had to ask her parents to pay for treatment in Serbia. To cap it all, Red Star did not extend her contract so she returned home in 2016. Since then she has come and gone from Saprissa and joined Atlas this year but has remained a stalwart with the national team, having played in the 2015 World Cup. She is an animal lover, once giving a home to a dog that suffered an accident and lost a leg.
Name: Lixy Rodríguez
Date of Birth: November 4, 1990
Club: Club Léon, Mexico
Rodríguez, one of the pioneers in the 2015 World Cup team, is like a bullet racing down the wing, and she combines her speed with a strong competitive spirit. She is one of the most influential players in the team and a role model for young Costa Rican girls. She played for UCEM Alajuela and then moved around, spending two years in Spain. One of those was with Tacón, now known as Real Madrid Women's team. Since her return home she has become a key player for Alajuelense and the national team will look to her experience as they start their campaign Down Under. Her Instagram account shows her training and enjoying family life, as well as promoting car oil.
Name: Fabiola Villalobos
Date of Birth: March 13, 1998
Club: Liga Deportiva Alajuelense, Costa Rica
She brings versatility and still excels in any position where her team needs her, although her preferred position is in attack. She is tenacious, strong, and has needed those qualities at times. Villalobos struggled with anxiety and depression for many years, but she now openly speaks about the importance of mental health, stating that she is stronger on the inside than she appears on the outside. Her parents wanted her to become a swimmer but she opted for football, but she had to first play in boys’ teams when she was at school. She used those years – even though she endured some tough times and some bullying for being the only girl in her team – to get stronger as she continued on her career. It shows as she made the squad for the Under-20 World Cup in 2014 when she was 16 years old and all these years later she will be key in Australia/New Zealand.
Name: Melissa Herrera
Date of Birth: October 10, 1996
Club: Bordeaux, France
Agile and incredibly fast with the ball. She has a long history with the national team, including the 2015 World Cup in Canada and scoring the late goal that earned a draw with South Korea in their second group game. She has played for Costa Rican teams such as Saprissa and Moravia, as well as in Colombia, and has been competing in the French league since 2018, first for Reims, for three years, and Bordeaux since 2021. She is one of the most vocal and outspoken players regarding the conditions that women's teams should have, advocating for equality and opportunities for improvement. She has also given public thanks to Costa Rican football great Shirley Cruz – the first woman from her country to win the Champions League – for her support throughout her career. “Thank you for opening the path to Europe for many women in our country.”
Midfielders
Name: Raquel Rodríguez Cedeño
Date of Birth: October 28, 1993
Club: Portland Thorns FC, United States
“Rocky Rodríguez” has played more than 100 matches and is the leading scorer for the national team. However she will probably be remembered most for what she did in Montreal in 2015, when she scored her country’s first goal in the World Cup, in a 1-1 draw with Spain. She is a tough player but, more importantly off the field, she is one of the main role models for young girls. Representing her country, becoming a professional player, and earning a scholarship were dreams she set for herself at the age of eight, and she has achieved them all. Football runs in Rodríguez's blood as her father, Sivianni, played in the Costa Rican first division, and for the national team. Rocky, who has been with Portland since 2020, uses her social media platforms to engage with her followers on relevant topics such as mental health.
Name: Katherine Alvarado
Date of Birth: April 11, 1991
Club: Saprissa, Costa Rica
Considered by some as currently the best player in Costa Rican football, she has been a full international for 16 years. Her only team on home soil has been Saprissa but she had a good two-year stint with Espanyol in Spain, as well as time in Finland and Colombia. She comes from a village called Pejibaye de Guatuso, where her father taught her how to milk cows and fish. A veteran of the 2015 campaign where two draws were not enough to reach the last 16 as one of the best third-placed teams. In 2022 she won Concacaf’s goal of the year for a curling 30-yard strike into the top corner in the Concacaf W Championship against Trinidad and Tobago. “One for the ages,” was how one commentator described it. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Name: Gloriana Villalobos
Date of Birth: August 20, 1999
Club: Saprissa, Costa Rica
To call Villalobos a prodigy is to do her a disservice. In June 2015 she became the youngest player at the World Cup, as Costa Rica made their bow, two months before she turned 16. But she was already used to being one of the youngest in a team by then. When she was 12 she played for Saprissa’s first team; at the age of 14 she helped her country qualify for the Under-20 World Cup, in 2014, and that same year she made her senior debut, scoring in a World Cup qualifier. She spent some time playing in the United States' College League in Florida, in 2017-18, before returning home. Growing up, she played football alongside her two brothers, one of whom is her twin. “I didn’t want to be excluded from their fun,” she says. Her teammates will hope she will bring all her talent to bear in the World Cup, especially if she can repeat the curling 25-yard shot that beat the Philippines in a friendly late in 2022.
Name: Yoanka Villanueva
Date of birth: August 21, 1996
Club: Dimas Escazú, Costa Rica
A fast and agile player, Villanueva is from the Indigenous Cabécar group and comes from Tamanca, a village where she left a large part of her family to pursue her dream of studying and playing football. She is the second Indigenous player for the national team, and she has helped bring visibility to her community, even making food donations as a sign of her gratitude to the club that welcomed her with open arms. She has spoken of her childhood, where she would get up at 4am to go to school on the bus while her mother worked in the community. She started to play football with an older brother but before long she was spotted and asked to take up the game more seriously at school.
Name: Priscila Chinchilla
Date of birth: July 11, 2001
Club: Glasgow City, Scotland
Even before her debut with the national team at the age of 16, there was talk going around about the skilful player from Pérez Zeledón and her future looked promising. The country’s best clubs were fighting over her before Alajuelense got her to sign in 2019 and in her 12 months there she scored a remarkable 86 league goals. She joined Glasgow City in December 2021, where she has won the league title, been named player of the year, and competed in the Champions League. Talking about the massive upheaval from home to Scotland, she said: “At first I was scared. I couldn’t speak English, I didn’t know what to do. But now I know the language and I’m comfortable in Glasgow.” Forty-four goals in 81 games shows how comfortable she has become. “You can’t imagine how much I wanted this trophy,” she said as Glasgow won the 2022-2023 league championship.
Name: Cristín Granados
Date of birth: August 19, 1989
Club: Sporting FC, Costa Rica
Granados is one of the most experienced players in the national team, known for her speed and intelligence on the field and impressive amounts of goals at various clubs. She won titles in Costa Rica with Saprissa and Moravia, as well as winning the Central American games in 2013. She has played in Spain – one of a few in the national squad to play for Tacón in Madrid – and also in Colombia. Like so many of her teammates, she started playing the game thanks to a brother, although it led to some awkward moments. As she explains: “I started playing with men and occasionally it was strange. People were coming just to watch the only girl in the team. I felt like an extra-terrestrial.” She went to university where she studied industrial engineering although combining that with football wasn’t easy. Granados adds: “As my mum said, whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”
Name: Mariana Benavides
Date of birth: December 26, 1994
Club: Saprissa, Costa Rica
A commanding presence at the back for all her clubs, Benavides is a tough opponent, using all her experience after many years in the game. She has played for Moravia, Herediano, and most recently Saprissa, winning national championships and is a consistent performer for the national team. In July 2019, she received her chef's diploma, and during the pandemic, she decided to start her own business, PediloCR. She was in Canada in 2015 – they played Spain in the group stage then and will do so again this year – and now accepts her role as one of the older members of the squad, eight years later. “Reaching this World Cup is just part of the growth of football we have seen in Costa Rica. I’m a more mature player now: there have been some difficult times for me with the national team but everything has led to this moment.”
Name: María Paula Porras
Date of birth: March 18, 2002
Club: Sporting FC, Costa Rica
She started her career at Saprissa, where she won the league before joining Sporting FC. In 2020 she picked up a serious injury which ruled her out for nine months. However, thanks in part to the support from her teammates, she did return to training in June 2021 which gave her a full year to get fit for the Under-20 World Cup, which Costa Rica hosted in August 2022. She was powerless, however, to prevent her team losing all three games. But that experience, no matter how dispiriting at the time, could serve her and some of her teammates well in Australia/New Zealand.
Name: Yerling Ovares Sequeira
Date of birth: January 17, 2002
Club: Sporting FC, Costa Rica
Incredibly fast and skillful, especially with the ball at her feet in the opposition area, where she likes to take on defenders and shoot. She has played for Moravia, Herediano, and now for Sporting FC. Although she has had limited appearances for the senior national team, she did play in the U-20 Women's World Cup in 2022. “It’s a beautiful thing, to know I have the opportunity to wear the Costa Rica shirt and fight as hard as I can for the whole country in the World Cup. It will be an experience I never forget. We will have the support of our families and the whole country. It’s the dream of every footballer,” she said. She has the community deep in her heart. A couple of years ago she opened a school in a rural part of the country and donated a kit to the all-girl squad.
Name: Alexandra Pinell
Date of birth: October 18, 2002
Club: Liga Deportiva Alajuelense, Costa Rica
She was captain in her country’s Under-20 World Cup campaign on home soil a year ago and made quite an impact in the very first group game against Australia. A free-kick early in the first half – voted one of the best goals of the tournament – gave Costa Rica the lead although they lost that game 3-1 and their subsequent two games against Spain and Brazil. The way she plays belies her lack of experience because she has great game-reading ability and technique. She was playing in the second division with San Carlos when was first called up to one of the junior national teams. She joined Alajuelense, where she has become a serial champion, winning both league titles – the “apertura” and “clausura” – in 2021 and again in 2022.
Name: Sofía Varela
Date of birth: March 28, 1998
Club: Santos Laguna, Mexico
A player – and psychology student – who left her hometown of San Carlos at the age of 13 to pursue her dreams as a footballer. In Costa Rica, she has played for Saprissa, where she has been a champion on multiple occasions. She has also played in an Under-17 World Cup – she was playing for a club called Fortuna de Desamparados at the time. Despite two anterior cruciate ligament injuries that tested her courage, her dreams remain intact and she has gone on to excel in Mexico. Since joining Santos Laguna, she has talked about how much she misses her family, who are her most important people. Is proud of her tattoos, which reference San Carlos and Costa Rica in general, demonstrating the deep love she has for her country and those closest to her.
Name: Carolina Venegas
Date of birth: September 28, 1991
Club: Atlas FC, Mexico
Passionate, fast, and skillful with the ball at her feet. In Costa Rica, she played for several teams, but it was at Saprissa where she established herself as the captain and even reached 100 goals with the club. She had a successful spell at Sporting Lisbon in 2017 for one year, where she won their national cup and the Super Cup. The 2015 World Cup was extra special for her because she and her sister Adriana were both in the squad, although this time around it is just Carolina representing her family. Off the field, she has been one of the players defending women's rights and has supported foundations that collaborate with the social well-being of girls and young women who are at risk and vulnerable in Costa Rica.
Name: María Coto
Date of birth: March 2, 1998
Club: LD Alajuelense, Costa Rica
Position: Defender
A very fast full-back, always strong in the tackle and with a powerful shot, she took up the game aged six. She played games for Herediano and then joined Alajuelense, where she has won multiple championships and made herself a regular for the national team. Her talent was noticed at a young age and she played in the Under-17 World Cup. Off the field, she works as a licensed occupational therapist. Another in the squad who featured in Canada in the World Cup eight years ago, she is now 25 and is vital to their hopes of gaining an early foothold in the group stages as she knits the defence together.
Name: Emily Flores
Date of birth: November 19, 2001
Club: Sporting FC, Costa Rica
Position: Midfielder
The young midfielder has shown speed, good game reading and leadership on the field. She has played with teams in her home country such as Suva Sports and Pérez Zeledón, as well as Sporting FC and has been part of the national team since she started to play in the lower leagues.
Name: Catalina Estrada
Date of birth: October 11, 1998
Club: Saprissa, Costa Rica
Position: Forward
She is a quick thinker and someone with good technique with the ball at her feet. She has been a champion multiple times with Saprissa and has national team experience. Originally from San Carlos, she is a gym trainer and a nutrition student. She never forgets that her 13 siblings have been the driving force towards achieving her dreams. Actually, one of her sisters was the key factor in getting her to take the game more seriously when Saprissa contacted her. Quietly spoken, she doesn’t show her emotions, preferring to think and analyse the game
Name: María Paula Elizondo
Date of birth: November 30, 1998
Club: Saprissa, Costa Rica
Position: Defender
A player known for her character on the field, she is referred to as “lefty” and possesses a powerful long-range shot. She has been a champion multiple times with Saprissa and has been collecting caps with various age-group national teams since her participation in the under-17s back in 2014. She has remained on the coaches’ radar since then, making it to the under-20s four years later. However she actually made her full national team debut in 2016.
Written by Fiorella Montoya (La Nacion) in Costa Rica for The Guardian.
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