by Rod Hughes
Poor Alajuela! No team ever tied its way into a national championship but that appears to be the strategy of “La Liga,” as it is affectionately known—affectionately if it is winning, that is. But that has been tha pattern this year and Sunday the erstwhile winningest soccer team tied Brujas 1-1, showing a limp midfield performance and a certain bewildermen about how to get the ball close in to the goal.
For Brujas it was no great fiesta, either. Its star forward, William Sunsing, sold last week to Liberia, muffed a penalty kick that would have won for the Escazu team. L. Lara’s goal for Alajuela at minute 29 and Brujas response by B Pena some five minutes into the second half was the sum of the scoring.
San Carlos, the “Northern Bulls” as they are nicknamed, showed plenty of spark by downing group-leading Liberia, 2-1. Goals by Perez and Furtado put Liberia into a comfortable lead in the first half and Ronald Fonseca’s response during the second part did not rattle the Bulls a bit.
Meanwhile Sunday, the Santos (meaning “Saints” in Spanish) upset the University side 2-1, prompting a clever headline wirter for Al Dia to ask, “Which saint did they invoke?” It is true that Santos head coach Milton Morales, who was fired last week because of the team’s terrible showing, strolled to the middle of the field after the game and raised his hands to heaven as if to thank a Celestial Force for the victory in his final game as the team’s coach.
S. Calderon opened the count for University after only eight minutes of play but Santos got its stride when Campos tied it six minutes later. Then, Divine Intervention kicked in with 30 minutes to go in the second stanza when University’s defender Maitland lost control of the ball, resulting in a self-inflicted goal. Not exactly a stirling victory, but Santos will take anything it can get this year.
Saturday’s results
Saprissa-Cartago
It was Alonso Solís all the way in Saprissa’s 4-0 bludgeoning of Cartago. La Nación’s sportwriter Gustavo Jiménez, never the most charitable commentator, accused the Cartago team of “inexcusable apathy.”
But how can only 11 people, superb athletes or not, defend their goal when Solís is all over the field? Check out the scoring:
At only 19 minutes into the game, Solís fed Walter Centeno the game-winning goal. But Alonso wasn’t through by a long shot, which was the only way you can describe his monumental goal at the end of the first period. A long, long shot. Then at minute 48, Solís fed Armando Alonso a goal-producing pass. And then, at minute 72, he fed Rónald Gómez a similar pass with the same result.
It was as if he were singlehandedly saluting the 35th anniversay of his team’s Ricardo Saprissa Stadium.
Heredia-Puntarenas
Then there was the Herredia win over an always tough Puntarenas team, 1-0. Heredia deserves credit for holding the port city team despite the expulsion of star midfielder Felix Montoya after 23 minutes of play. The teams were not even in numbers until Puntarenas’s Rodrigo Cordero was booted on his sercond yellow card at minute 57. The only goal came early, after nine minutes when Jafet Soto centered the ball in front of the Puntarenas goal and Robert Arias headed it in.
Perez Zeledón-Carmelita
Carmelita left the stadium in shell shock after a whirlwind of Perez Zeledón players administered a 4-1 drubbing. PZ’s Jesfy (yes, that’s the way he spells it) Valverde converted a corner kick into the opening marker. That seemed the end of it, because no one scored until 13 fatal minutes in the second half when Diego País slammed the ball from substitute Bill Gonzalez into a goal. Six minutes later Tirso Guio fed Luis Venegas another sweet one for 3-0 follwed by Wilmer Lopez’s pass to González for 4-0. Kervin Lacey popped in Andrés Chaves’s centering of the ball at minute 86 for a lost cause.