by Rod Hughes

Holy Steinbrenner! Do you suppose that changing the field marshal of a sports club really helps a team? Maybe so…

San Carlos, playing on their home grass in Ciudad Quesada and sporting a new head coach, Juan Carlos Arguedas, dumped a lackluster Cartago yesterday 2-1. Carlos Hernandez, sports writer for La Nacion, seems to think that players do better in their first game under a new coach.

It was only 12 minutes into the match when fancy footwork by Luis Pena allowed Enoc Perez to score. Some 12 minutes later, an error by Cartago goalie Donny Grant allowed a goal by Edder Munguio for 2-1. In fact, all through the first half San Carlos played with a creativity and verve the side has not shown all season.

In the second half they forgot all they had learned in the first, but fornuately for them Cartago was soon playing with 19 men after Andreas Sanabria was sent off with too many yellow warnings. As it was, Cartago’s Minor Diaz sent a corner kick from Esteban Bolanos through the arc. After that, San Carlos fans began urging the clock to run faster.

Note: We would like to apologize for the tardiness of this report, written much earlier but delayed by technical problems.

by Rod Hughes

Puntarenas fans are grieving because they thought their soccer team could. Coming fresh from a good shellacking of Saprissa in Costa Rica’s first Division Sunday, they were all but certain they could get past Saprissa and move on in the UNCAF soccer tourney.

But it was not to happen, partly because the three forward system, old fashioned as it seemed, had worked well with Saprissa last Sunday. But in the first half, it did not work at all. Late in the first half Sapriss’s Alonso Solís drew first blood with the help of Gabriel Badilla. Puntarenas did not tie until minute 69 on a shot by Eduardo GomezAt minute 83, despite revived second half play by the port city, Saprissa’s Armando Alonso, assisted by Jairo Arrieta (who had replaced Alejandro Alpizar only three minutes earlier) drove in the deciding goal. It was 2-1, Saprissa’s ticket to the semifinals.

Saprissa has its eye on the championship and a slot at the World Cup for soccer clubs, but it seemed a long way away when they struggled against a revived Puntarenas offense.

by Rod Hughes

So half of the UNCAF soccer tournament semifinals will be fought out on Costa Rican soil, since Alajuela got by Real España of Honduras on goal kicks, 5-4 after ending regulations play in a 2-2 tie. The first semifinal game will be in Tibas’s Ricardo Saprissa Stadium Oct. 23, followed by the windup at Alajuela Oct. 31. the winner will play the winner of the Municpal vs. Motagua series in the finals.

In the kind of shootout that ended the latest game, one goalie is the hero and one the goat. In this case, Alajuela’s Wardy Alfaro wears the laurels. Briefly, scoring went like this: Real España’s Everaldo Ferreira drew first blood on a pass by Elder Valladares only to find it evened up by Victor Nuñez. Roy Mayrie put Alajuela ahead on Nuñez’s pass but forward Melvin Valladares tied it.

This left it up to Alfaro who blocked a penalty kick by Jose Carlos Díaz. The warriors from La Liga, as Alajuela is called in its official title, did not miss at all.

This means that the traditional rivals will square off in a two-game series that is sure to pack the stands, a classico of classicos. You can be certain that Saprissa is going to keep an eye on Alajuela’s Victor El mambo Nuñez who lead UNCAF with three goals. Saprissa midfielder Walter Centeno has two in the tourney.

by Rod Hughes

Are you ready for this, friends? Puntarenas 4, Saprissa 1.

Last year’s champs appeared much like has-beens in the port city’s Lito Perez Stadium yesterday. It appeared at first like a normally hard-fought First Division game with Puntarenas’s Jose Garro opening scoring after 22 minutes of play and Saprissa’s Jody Stewart evening it up two minutes later.

Rodolfo Arnaez made it two for Puntarenas with an accurate bullet before the first half ended. Greaves made it 3-1 and Saprissa coach Jeaustin Campos may have felt the premonitions of disaster, especially with the fancy footwork Jorge Barboza had been using all day to confound Saprissa defenders. Then Barboza made the fourth goal.

Wednesday, Saprissa again meets Puntarenas in the UNCAF international tournament of clubs for the right to go on to the semifinals and Campos hopes recent history won’t be repeated.

Santos 2, San Carlos 1

San Carlos not only lost another game in a so-far-dismal season but also its head coach, Julio Cesar Cortes, who resigned. Paulo Rodriguez opened scoring for San Carlos after only three minutes and was on his way to being a hero until Johnny Acosta blotted his copybook with a self-inflicted goal that evened it up. But Marvin Chinchilla scored for Santos with 10 minutes left in the match. San Carlos had appeared all afternoon like interested observers.

Heredia 3, Liberia 0

Heredia had it all their way over the hapless Liberia Mia team, dealing the Guanacaste province team its fourth consecutive loss. Star midfielder Jafet Soto sank the first one barely 14 minutes in, Liberia’s Jorge Retana the second on an autogoal (oh, that’s embarrassing!) and Gerald Drummand the third early in the second half.

Carmelita 3, Cartago 1

Cartago is often referred to as the “foggy city” but the only fog on the bright day at Fello Meza Stadium was the home 11. After 15 minutes, Carmelita’s Minor Diaz brought gloom but David Diach brought a ray of sunshine by evening it up before the first half ended.

But Alejandro Gonzalez’s cannon shot early in the second stanza brought back the gloom, deepened by Kaylor Soto’s last minute goal. Tennis, anyone?

Brujas 1, UCR 0

Ring out the bells! Brujas of Escazu won a match, only its second this season. It all happened when Ricardo Harris centered the ball to Ricardo Steer who lofted it, then headed it into the University of Costa Rica’s goal. Unusual, but whatever works…

by Rod Hughes

Is that a gnashing of teeth we hear from Tibás?

Must be the reaction of Saprissa fans to Wednesday’s 1-1 tie with Puntarenas in the port city’s home stadium.

The game was exciting for everyone except two frustrated coaches and Saprissa fans who are always out for blood. (And if they don’t get it, they turn on the coach.) Of course there were numerous opportunities to score and Puntarenas’s technical director, Luis Diego Arnaez, was especially unhappy about his team’s performance in front of the goal.

“We had four close encounters where we could have won,” lamented Saprissa coach Jeaustin Campos.

The first 18 minutes looked good for Saprissa, capped by a pass by Alonso Solís to the ever-dependable midfielder Walter Centeno, who launched a comet into the goalmouth. But at minute 33 Puntarenas evened it up with Mario Camacho’s goal on an assist by Alvaro Montero. For the rest of the game, it was all suspenseful narrow escapes by defenders. One notable save was Saprissa goalie Jose Francisco Porras’s one-’handed stop of a sure goal by Camacho, a case of reactions that a cat would envy.

Long-distance shots by Solís, Ever Alfaro and Celso Borges for Saprissa kept the fans on the edges of their seats but came to nothing. One point of comment was the use of three forwards (Alemán, Camacho and Alvaro Guerrero) by Arnaez, a system that has fallen out of fashion in recent years.

by Rod Hughes

A listless Alajuela made its path to the championship of the Uncaf Cup for regional soccer clubs more difficult last night by a scoreless tie with Real Espana of Honduras. This puts Real Espana in good shape with the next game in its home stadium.

The game in Alajuela did not live up to its international stature. It was a further disappointment for Alajuela fans that the home team played with one more man after Luis Guifaro was expelled early in the second half. The Liga’s attack on the goal was stillborn, unlike the fast, active play we expect of the last century’s winningest Tico 11.

One disappointment came at minute 20 when visiting goalie Marcello Masias stopped a free kick by Alajuela’s Mario Viquez. At that, Viquez was one of the few in red and black uniform who deigned to try to score. It seemed that when Cristian Montero left the game due to an injury that all the life drained from Alajuela.

To make life even more difficult for the red and the black, Alajuela has a killer schedule for the next two weeks, playing in the Costa Rican First Division and in the Cup tourney.

by Rod Hughes

Well, now, the lion (emblem of la Liga Alajuelense) found it has claws, after all, yesterday. The powerful side that many pick to unseat Saprissa from its thrown has failed to win its last four matches.

At minute 36, forward Victor (Mambo) Nunez made what turned out to be the winning goal much to the obvious relief of coach Carlos Restrepo. With a minute left to go in the game Berny Solorzano added the belated insurance goal. As for Cartago, at least one sportswiter accused the team of timidity on attack, as if wearing a “kick me” sign for Alajuela’s benefit.

Brujas of Escazu battled a tough Perez Zeledon side to a 2-2 tie in an exciting, tight match. Danny Fonseca opened 13 minutes into the match with a deceptively soft touch. But PZ pushed out the lines to even it up at 1-1 on Diego Pais’s goal. In the second half Brujas went ahead again Leandro Gotabatto’s marker only to have Bill Gonzalez even it up nine minutes later. The winners: the fans.

In Santa Barbara, home team Carmelita downed Puntarenas 2-0 in a dirty game. No, we don’t mean full of red and yellow cards but the periodic rainstorms that left the field looking as if it had been plowed for planting.David Diach was the pivotal player for Carmelita, passing to Alejandro Viquez so he could score, then scoring himself. Carmelita finished with 10 men and the win.

Saturday’s Results

Saprissa kept a firm hold on the leadership of Group B by beating Liberia 1-0, Heredia was not giving up its number 1 position in group A, winning over Santos 2-1. University of Costa Rica beat San Carlos 2-1, giving the newcomers to the First Division a surpising second place tie with Alajuela in the Group A standings.

by Rod Hughes

Ever wondered what would happen if a soccer referee got a red card? The answer is: apparently, big trouble.

Edgar Duran, a 13-year veteran of officiating Costa Rican soccer matches for the Costa Rican Soccer Federation (FEDEFUT) found himself left off the list of referees this season and wants severance benefits from the soccer body—or else. And FEDEFUT says he is not entitled to any, reports the sports section of Al Dia.

The former referee told the newspaper, “FEDEFUT has to give me a dismissal letter,” so he can go after severance benefits. But the federation’s general secretary Jorge Ortega says he is not entitled to such a letter “because he isn’t an employee of FEDEFUT. We’ll simply send him a letter giving our explanation of why he was left off the panel of referees.” Ortega added that the soccer clubs pay the referees, not his organization.

A member of FEDEFUT’s officialling committee, a former international referee, Berny Ulloa, agrees. “Not one referee has a labor contract with the Federation.”

But Duran says the Federation has given him no option but to fight for his “due process.” He does not discount going to FIFA, the international czar of soccer, an all-powerful organization that administers, as sole monopoly, everything but pickup games in the park on Sunday.

One burning question the newspaper did not ask: How does it feel to vigorously appeal a decision and get no change?

by Rod Hughes

In a not exactly gripping exhibition game last night in Toronto, Canada, the home team held Costa Rica’s All Stars in handcuffs for a 1-1 tie.

In a time when the eliminations for the World Cup are approaching, these games serve both as a honing of teamwork and as a way sportswriters, with performance under a magnifying glass, use to guage probable winners. (Usually, they are wrong, but it keeps them off the streets.)

The fact is, neither team played their best, with Costa Rica especially bumbling and timid on attack, unlike their aggressive perfromance against Honduras. In fact, they made not a single attack on the goal in the first half! No doubt about it, Canada looked better, if not brilliant, attacking right up to the final whistle.

When Victor Nunez, with the aid of Junior Diaz, scored for the Ticos at the beginning of the second half, local fans settled back for a Costa Rican romp. But Canada was merely surprised. Nor was Costa Rica helped when Randall Azofeifa was (as the Brits say) sent off with a flourish of the red card. Ah, well, press on regardless…

At minute 53, Dwayne De Rosario tied it and that is where it lay. But Canada this time around is no pushover as it was in years past, so brace yourselves for some tough games in the World Cup eliminations.

by Rod Hughes
Santos! is a mild expression of surprise in Spanish, but we assume that Saprissa fans were saying somewhat stronger things yesterday when the struggling team from Guapiles defeated last year’s champions 2-1.
Not only did Santos show adeptness in their attacks on the goal but also imagination and a firm grasp of strategy. And the trio that cracked Saprissa’s defense, Marvin Chinchilla, Johan Condega and Argenis Fernandez, are hardly household words in the sports world. But as the latter two raced down the sidelines, the trio looked like Brazilian All Stars on a good day at the World Cup.
Alonso Solis on a pass from Pablo Brenes opened the scoring for Saprissa after 31 minutes of play but it was not long before Chinchilla tied it for Santos with help from Fernandez. In the second half, Eduardo Valverde, substituting for Condega, won it for Santos on a pass from Cristian Valverde, himself substituting for Fernandez. Saprissa’s only consolation is that they were playing without their contribution to the All-Star team.
Cartago won its first game of the young season, 2-1, taking advantage of a wobbly Perez Zeledon opening game. Esteban Granados scored on a pass from Leonardo Ocamica, followed by Cartago’s second goal by Minor Diaz assisted ably by Richard Mahoney (experience will tell). Diego Diaz scored from a pass by Marco Hernandez at minute 81, too little, too late for PZ.
Playing with only 10 men in the last half hour, Carmelita beat Liberia on its home pitch, 2-1. All goals were made in the second half with David Diach opening scoring for Carmelita only to see it tied 1-1 by Ronald Fonseca on a penalty kick. The winning goal came from Kervin Lacey’s penalty kick.
Las Brujas managed to break its losing streak of late by defeating San Carlos on its home pitch 2-1. The only consolation for San Carlos is that its star Andy Furtado scored his sixth goal of the season to lead the top scorers. The Escazu team’s Ignacio Aguilar and Paolo Rodriguez won it for Las Brujas.