Costa Rica Soccer — Can Coach Medford take team to World Cup 2010?

Costa Rica’s most popular sport is without a doubt soccer, or fútbol in Spanish, and with the world cup qualifiers looming around the corner for the “Tico’s” the passionate fans and the ever scrutinizing media are asking one question, “Will Costa Rica make it to South Africa?”.

Having qualified for the past two tournaments in 2006 and 2002 hopes were high that the national team could go on and reach their 3rd successive World Cup tournament, however the Costa Rican side has yet to pick up a win from the past 10 games, putting serious doubts in peoples’ minds about whether the current squad is capable of reaching these high international levels.

Costa Rica’s past opponents haven’t been of any standard that should particularly trouble the national side either. Back in September Costa Rica played Honduras in an away game that resulted in a disappointing 0-0 draw before a trip to Canada where they managed to pick up a respectable point in a 1-1 draw after leading 1-0. This was followed by a home encounter during October with one of the smallest soccer nations in the world, Haiti, which also resulted in a disappointing 1-1 draw – a game the Tico’s were expected to have won.

Sweden was the Tico’s first game of 2008 who brought along a second string team with most of the European based players turning out for club duties. Almost the whole Swedish squad had never played together before with many playing their first international games, but they Tico team still ran out 1-0 losers. A game where Costa Rica has probably looked the most dangerous in a long while, despite the fact that they never really got going until the 60th minute when they found themselves a goal behind. Was it the Swedes tiring out in the heat? Or was it that Costa Rica had started to find some form? It seemed to be the prior.

Costa Rica faced a second string Iran team at the end of January who had failed to find the net in 3 previous matches. Costa Rica was on the back foot for most of the game with the only highlights coming from two long range free kicks and could have easily been embarrassed if it wasn’t for some great goalkeeping by Ricardo Gonzalez.

Jamaica followed a week later as the Costa Rican side threw away a 1-0 lead with 2 minutes left on the clock after Sunsing had put them in an undeserved lead during a game that was largely dominated by the “Reggae Boyz”.

The general feeling here is that it is not entirely the teams fault, and that it is coach Hernan Medford who is to blame for. Hernan Medford who starred for Costa Rica during their debut World Cup in Italia ’90 helped score the goal that knocked Sweden out of the competition and put the Central American country through to the final 16, the best World Cup finish Costa Rica has ever had.

The national press is also out to get Medford. La Republica, a popular national newspaper have been running advertorials on the back of busses as well as their papers questioning Medford and whether he will get them to South Africa in 2010.

Whatever the problem is, there is certainly one there. Despite only losing one game in their past six, they haven’t won any games, failing to win games that on paper they really should have walked away with. One thing is for sure, this Costa Rican team is a long way off from what it used to be back in 2001/02 when Fonseca, Wanchope and company looked like deadly threats, most notably beating Mexico at their own stadium for the first time in 27 years. Right now, they would lucky to lose the game by a 2 goal margin.

It seems unlikely that Costa Rica will make the 2010 World Cup unless changes are made, but only time will tell.

Photo courtesy of La Nacion

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Filed under: Sports on February 11th, 2008