Recently I discovered that in season 2 of the 2018 anime Costa Rica replaced Malaysia although the results will be similar. After reflection, perhaps I found the reason why this change of teams took place?
In real football, Costa Rica has achieved much more impressive results than Malaysia by qualifying for the last 3 World Cups (2014, 2018 and 2022) and even if in the last two they were eliminated in the Group Phase they have shown that they more than have their place in the elite of world football: I mean they nearly reach the 1/8 final if the Japan didn’t beat Spain and they won against Germany 2-4.
In 2014 Costa Rica even reached the quarter-finals, being narrowly eliminated by the Netherlands (lost on penalties 4-3 after the score was 0-0 before). Costa Rica even managed to finish first in a difficult group made up of England, Italy and Uruguay with a 7/9. In addition, during the Gold Cup (competition organized by CONCACAF) they finished between the 1/4 finals and the 1/2 finals. Costa Rica even won the tournament 3 times: (in 1969, 1973 and 1989) while finishing finalist in 2002 as well as 3rd on 4 occasions (1965, 1971, 1985 and 1993)
In the case of Malaysia we cannot really say that their results are the most glorious: between 1986 and 2024 they have only qualified for the Asian Cup of Nations on 2 occasions: 2007 which they co- organized with Indonesia as well as Thailand and Vietnam as well as 2024 to be eliminated each time in the 1st round.
It seems more interesting to me to put Costa Rica, which shines quite often in CONCACAF even if it was a shame that they will copy and paste Malaysia into the anime