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.