Costa Rica: A look back on road to Germany

Costa Rica’s performance in the CONCACAF qualifying marathon had its ups and its downs. Let’s take a look back and see what was the good, the bad and the ugly.

So as we all know after World Cup 2002 fan favorite and legendary hero Alexandre Guimaraes quit as the head of Costa Rica. With his departure, Steve Sampson came into the picture. Costa Rica was to play little Cuba in the first phase of qualification. On paper it was supposed to be nothing more than quick work to get by the Cubans. At the end of the two legs Costa Rica did come out victorious as expected but only by the skin of their teeth. Costa Rica had gone to the next round on away goals. A 2-2 draw in Cuba was what it took to get to the semi-final round of qualifying. Shortly after the narrow escape, our buddy Steve Sampson was shown the door. A good thing it was too. I really don’t know what the Costa Rican soccer federation was thinking when they hired Sampson. This is the same man who led the U.S at World Cup 98 when they lost all their matches and failed to reach the second round.

Next round now. Costa Rica was drawn into their group with Honduras, Guatemala and Canada. While Mexico was drawn in with Trinidad and two small Caribbean teams. At this point Colombian Jorge Pinto was hired as national team coach. First three matches ended in Costa Rica gaining only a close 3 points and a humiliating 5-2 defeat to Honduras at home. Things looked to change as the second half of the semi-final round began. An amazing 5-0 win while hosting Guatemala and Costa Rica started looking more like themselves. A 3-1 in Canada followed by a narrow 0-0 draw in Honduras saw Costa Rica edge the CONCACAF powers on goal difference. Once again Costa Rica escapes death by the skin of their teeth.

The final round saw Costa Rica joined by Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Trinidad and USA. The hurdle came in the form of Mexico who had been bullying around little Caribbean teams. Two quick and consecutive goals by Jaime Lozano saw Mexico come out on top. This was the first time in a long time that Mexico had beaten Costa Rica away and the crowd was not pleased. FIFA landed Costa Rica a fine plus forced them to play their next home match behind closed doors due to crowd trouble. Panama came into Costa Rica to try and cause an upset. It took a 91st minute goal by Roy Myrie to put away Panama. Costa Rica then set off to Trinidad to face the only Caribbean team in the final round. The match ended 0-0 and saw the end of Jorge Pinto who was sacked because of the poor start. In his place came the legendary Alex Guimaraes whose job was to turn around Costa Rica. It wouldn’t come easy as the next match was against the Americans in Salt Lake, Utah. Two goals by Landon Donovan followed by a late Brian McBride goal saw the Ticos go home disappointed. Guatemala came knocking next and all three points were ensured when Paulo Wanchope broke the tie breaker with the last kick of the game. Costa Rica still looked very unconvincing. Next match was a 2-0 loss in the Estadio Azteca, Mexico where Costa Rica had made history 4 years before by becoming the first CONCACAF team to beat Mexico in that stadium. The picture was now becoming clearer. Mexico and USA had top spots and weren’t getting caught.

That left Costa Rica, Guatemala and Trinidad in a dogfight for the final automatic qualifying spot. With Panama having an outside chance of qualifying they hosted Costa Rica. After 90 minutes Costa Rica came out victorious and started to look more like themselves. Costa Rica now looked closer to the third qualifying spot. Another win this time in Trinidad saw Costa Rica needing only a win against their American rivals to qualify. Costa Rica’s qualifying came the same way 4 years before. They had beaten the Americans at home and reached the World Cup. This time around it looked to be the same and it did. A 3-0 win saw celebrations all around as Costa Rica overcame all their obstacles and survived the hair raising rollercoaster ride that was CONCACAF qualifying. Costa Rica now looks on to the future where they will try and improve on their 1990 showing at the World Cup where they reached the second round. It’s all about which team shows up. The Costa Rica at the end of qualifying or the one which nearly got killed by Cuba.