“The Classic” Offers a Surprising Result
Before we get to the soccer game played Saturday, it might be good to set the scene, because nothing underscores sports as show biz like the so-called “Classic,” the regular season games between Alajuela and Saprissa. Each is awaited with the same anticipation here as the Academy Awards in Hollywood. Sportswriters burn up tons of ink analyzing each team’s chances–usually wrongly.
Alajuela has the winningest club in Costa Rica’s First Division, winning more national championships in the last century than a good many teams put together. They are the New York Yankees of national soccer. Every club is laying for them.
Saprissa is somewhat like the Boston Red Sox, often a bridesmaid, but was probably the first modern franchise in national soccer, long offering stuffed animals, keyrings and T-shirts in their trademark deep violet color. They have one other thing in common with Major League Baseball’s Bosox—they have the most colorful, demanding and unkind fans. We can remember a few years ago when Saprissa was trailing in an international tourney in its own home stadium. Naturally, the opposing team was playing ball control to protect its lead while frustrated Saprissa fans began to shout, with every pass by Saprissa’s opponents, “Olay!” as if at a bullfight. After the game, one of the opposing team was asked on TV, “What do you think of Saprissa?”
“The team is a tough opponent,” said the player, “but all those “olays?’ They deserve better fans.”
But strange things happen at the Classic. This time Saprissa, which has been wandering about the garden like a sleepwalker these past weeks, played the kind of game that has been their trademark with fast aggressive attacks on the goal. Their defense no longer resembled a wide-mesh strainer as when it let past three goals in four minutes two weeks ago.
The result: 3-0 in Saprissa’s favor, shutting out Alajuela’s star striker, Rolando Fonseca, who has been keeping his team’s head above water, at times seemingly single-handed.
Scoring went like this: At minute 38, Alonso SolĂs on a pass by Alejandro AlpĂzar. In the second half, SolĂs passed one to Celso Borges and, with a few minutes to play, Alan Alemán passed to Cristián Bolaños to put the frosting on the cake. And the formerly stumbling Saprissa had won it, passing masterfully, especially in the second half, as if the ball were a guided missile. Nary a misstep.