by Rod Hughes

Saprissa continued to find the goal area alien territory Sunday, tying San Carlos 1-1. The tie did not do either club any good: San Carlos is out of the running for the finals and Saprissa dropped from being overal leader (due to its nine-match winning streak earlier this year) in the standings.

The big purple “S” hammered at the goal 11 times but only made a single goal, by Alejandro Alpizar on an assist by Celso Borges to tie it at minute 22. But you have to give Saprissa credit for seeming to get their old aggressiveness back, especially since San Carlos’s Luis Jair Arroyo had scored on a pass from Marcos Mena after only nine minutes of play. This time, they didn’t come all unravelled.

Alajuela 2, Cartago 0

Alajuela managed to knock Cartago out of any chance at playing in the finals and got the point advantage in the overal standings with their 2-0 victory over Cartago. The victory crowned a fine afternoon for Victor Nunez who made the first goal a bare 12 minutes into the match and then passed at minute 75 to Pablo Herrera to sank the insurance goal.

The match was largely lackluster for Cartago whose 11 passed long minutes of yawn-inducing play interspersed between seconds of competence.

Liberia 1, Santos 1

A sorry day in Guapiles was Sunday, when the tie with Liberia assured that the club lost its last chance to stay in the First Division. If Santos had won, it would have been Cartago getting the “passport to obscurity” as one sportwriter put it. Instead it ended six years of Santos challenging the big boys.

Things looked bright for Santos when Eliecer Delgado on an assist by Gustavo Martinez surprised the Liberia defense after only three minutes on the pitch. But only 12 minutes later, Liberia’s veteran William Sunsing evened it up with an assist by Allan Aleman. Sunsing proved to be the club’s hangman.

Heredia 4, Carmelita 0

Heredia not only overwhelmed Carmelita but earned its place in the finals of the Summer Tournament. Playing in their home pitch, In fact, it took on the aspect of an Heredia fiesta with a sort of “it’s your turn next to score.”

Goals were> Roberth Arias after only 4 minutes, Marvin Angulo at the end of the first half, Franklin Chacon at minute 74 and Jafet soto for minutes later. It was Paulo Cesar Wanchope’s first victory as coach and an important one it was.

Brujas 1, Perez Zeledon 1

Two hopefuls for the final round in the Summer Tourney met, tied—and both won. By not losing, the matchmatics gave both a birth. Carmelita veteran Jewisson Bennett scored first on an assist by Tirso Guio. At minute 35 Osman Lopez tied it.

Despite being shoo-ins for the semifinals, neither side was giving quarter.

by Rod Hughes

If you are in the business of importing electronic gadgetry, you are in the right business at the right time in Costa Rica. Equipment such as the mp3 and mp4 music and video reproduction gadgets, cell phones and digital cameras topped $78 million (dollars, not colones) last year, according to Banco Central figures.

This figure is up 64% over 2006 and reflects not only the fast-moving electronics boom but the fact that, demographically, this is still a young country despite the slowing of the birth rate over the last several years. (To the uninitiated, walking down the street and seeing every third persons with his/her hand to his ear, one would think the country was in an epidemic of earaches.)

Yolanda Fernandez, corporate relations chief of WalMart of Costa Rica estimates that demand is up 200% in the last two years. Grupo M marketing managers Mario Hernandez says that especially among young people, electronic gear is a “very strong fashion and necessity these days. And, I daresay, it’s not going to soften any time soon.”

Both agree that the kids have to have the fastest and latest on the market and they want it now. But partly, it is because of the ease, convenience and capacity of sophisticated hardware. “What can be better than to take a photo and decide immediately if it’s good or bad?” asked Hernandez, “Or, why download compact disks if an mp3 gives me a lot of music in a tiny apparatus?”

by Rod Hughes

It’s a good thing Costa Ricans live a long time, a story in today’s La Nacion shows. They have to, if they appeal the amount of their pensions.

Not only are Costa Rican pensions a mere pittance compared even to the U.S. Social Security, but the creaky administration of the Tico pension system makes getting an adjustment almost impossible. La Nacion profiled the case of a Guanacaste accountant, Luis Javier Sanchez, 76, who has been battling 24 years to get “just a little more” from his monthly pension.

Sanchez worked 30 years for several government agencies when he retired in 1984 from his last job in the Ministry of, ironically, Finance. After getting no answer on his claim right after he received his first check, in 1999 he took the situtation to a Labor Court which found in his favor— last year! Indeed, his retirement benefits had been miscalculated and he is to receive about a third more each month than before.

Now begins Sanchez’s next arduous quest—to get reimbursed for the lack during the past 24 years. May you live to be a 100, Sr. Sanchez. Costa Rica’s Bureau of Pensions still handles paper files despite a promise to computerize 21,800 cases. (The figure would be even higher if it were not for the fact that 36,000 teacher’s pensions were computerized by their pension organization, overseen by the powerful teachers’ unions.)

The Pension Bureau pleads lack of budget to pay the 15 persons they promised to hire to simply take out the staples, eliminate duplicated documents, assign a number and pass the cleaned files into a scanner to put them in the computer. Meanwhile, complaints about slow pensions continue to mount up—1,800 in last December alone. And appeals in the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Chamber must have mounted up to 2,000 just last year alone, estimates Hasel Diaz of the Ombudsman’s Office.