Costa Rica Sports News – It looks like the Colombian coach, Jorge Luis Pinto, was a blessing for for Costa Rica. Joining the CONCACAF preliminaries in Round 3, Los Ticos finished second behind Mexico in their group to advance to the final six-team phase, where they sealed their ticket to Rio 2014, finishing second behind USA.
World Cup Finals History
Costa Rica played their first game as a national team in 1921, a 7-0 win over Central American neighbours El Salvador. But their first participation in the world’s biggest football tournament was in 1990, taking full advantage of Mexico’s suspension to reach the finals in Italy. They beat Sweden and Scotland to reach the knockout rounds in an impressive debut under the care of Bora Milutinovic, where they lost to Czechoslovakia. They returned to the world stage in 2002 after narrowly failing to reach USA 1994 and France 1998.
Rio 2014
Costa Rica has been drawn in Group D, all along Italy, England and Uruguay.
Key Players
Costa Rica’s main threat is Bryan Ruiz who is Called “a truly special player” by former coach Rodrigo Kenton. Alongside Ruiz are a number of pillars like Alvaro Saborio, Cristian Bolanos and outstanding goalkeeper Keilor Navas.The dribbling skills and all-around attacking play of the young Joel Campbell have made him another of Los Ticos’ most valuable assets.
Coach: Jorge Luis Pinto
Best Performances in a FIFA Competition: FIFA World Cup Italy 1990 (Round of 16), FIFA U-20 World Cup Egypt 2009 (Fourth place)
Former Stars: Hernan Medford, Paulo Wanchope, Walter Centeno
By: Zaki Krichi, en.starafrica.com
