by Rod Hughes
Perhaps the newspaper Al Dia’s sportswriter summed it up best when he sarcastically wrote that he could scarcely believe his eyes that both teams were on the field but that Heredia appeared to be playing alone in their 1-0 romp over Alajuela.
The way Milton Montenegro wrote it up, Alajuela simply stood around while like observers while All-Star Alajuela goalie Wardy Alfaro repeatedly saved Costa Rican soccer’s winningest team from “major shame.”
Heredia first knocked at the door, then hammered and finally broke it down in minute 69 when Marvin Angulo put one past goalie Alfaro. According to Montenegro, Alfaro’s teammates were standing, thumbs in their waistbands (possibly because soccer shorts don’t have pockets to put their hands in) like spectators at an accident scene. Manfully, Alfaro accepted the blame for the defeat but at least one Tico sportwriter doesn’t believe a word of his mia culpa.
Saprissa-Carmelito
While Saprissa coach Jeaustin Campos shouted at the trainer to hurry up and get Pablo Brenes, replacement midfielder, ready to go on the field late in the first half, he must have had some premonition. Brenes came on at minute 42 and, four minutes later in replacement time, passed to Alonso Solis for the winning (and only) goal of the game. It was the first loss of the season for high-flying Carmelita and its new coach Mauricio Montero.
In other results during the weekend, it was Puntarenas over Santos, 1-0, Liberia and Brujas finishing tied 2-2, Perez Zeledon swamping San Carlos 3-1 and University of Costa Rica over Cartago 2-1.
Puntarenas still leads Group A with 11 points, trailed by
Alajuela, Heredia and UCR each with 8 points. In Group B, Liberia has surprised even itself by leading with 8 points, trailed by Saprissa and Perez Zeledon with 6.

by Rod Hughes
Costa Rica has long been near the top of the world list for having the most traffic accidents per capita. Today, the daily La Nacion focused on the cost to the National Insurance Institute (INS, the Spanish acronym) that is passed on to the individual policy holder.
Some 60 traffic accident injuries per day cost INS an average of 27 million colones.That is more than $50,000—not a monstrous sum in the United States but a heavy burden on INS, even if it does have a government insurance monopoly. The company runs its own medical care and rehabilitation facility and also contracts with the private hospital La Catolica for surgery and intensive care.
But INS is not the only public heath agency taking a hit from traffic mishaps. Some ambulances take accident victims automatically to a Social Security (Caja) hospital. The Caja attended 21,912 injuries to motorists, cyclists and pedestrians in 2006. INS treated 18,320 last year. But these figures are a trifle misleading, since often a Caja hospital will treat a traffic victim’s hurts, stabilize the patient, then pass the patient to INS for follow up and rehab.
The newspaper focused today on the motorcycle injuries, common here since many drivers disregard the rights of passage of bikes and their all too vulnerable riders. The paper interviewed patients in a ward that seemed to specialize in bike riders. Some were quite eloquent, as were their injuries.
Zaira Mora, 49, was returning home only five kilometers away in Grecia, riding the bike driven by her husband Fernando when a public transit bus swerved out of its lane Aug. 9 and hit them. She suffered a fractured femure and tibia in her left leg. “It should be called a “muertocicleta” she said bitterly, a clever pun in Spanish. (Motocicleta is the word for motorcycle, while the word muerto means dead.) She is looking forward (if the word forward may be used) to six or eight months of recuperation followed by painful rehab.
Red Cross volunteer Victor Benavides was hit by a drunk driver Aug. 14 as he rode on a highway in San Carlos canton. He is waiting his turn for surgery on three fractures of the right leg.
Randy Esquivel, 21, has three leg fractures and is also the victim of a hit-and-run. “(Car) drivers are brutes,” he said, “They don’t measure the dangers, so here I am paying the consequences.”