Heredia Fights Off Liberia for 2-1 Win
by Rod Hughes
Heredia, ambitiously nicknamed “the Team” in Spanish (where the word is a foreign one), seemed somewhat schitzoid in its 2-1 soccer win over a scrappy Liberia. In the first half, “the Team” played like champs, scoring their goals with aplomb against a porous defense.
When Liberia returned to the pitch for the second half, coach Carlos Restrepo had them breathing fire and Heredia seemed put off by all this spirit. Wasn’t the Liberia side supposed to rollover and play dead? If they thought so, they did not know their Guanacaste adversaies well at all.
After only 14 minutes of play, Heredia’s Carlos Johnson blasted one past Liberia goalie Rodolfo Alvarez. Then came what proved the silver bullet by Mario Camacho at minute 23. There the half ended comfortably for Heredia. Too comfortably, it turned out. But in the second half Jacques Remy booted one in during an Heredia siesta. The situation got even chancier when Heredia’s Roberth Arias was expelled with two yellow cards against him and Heredia once more had to depend on their remarkable goalie Ricardo Gonzalez to yank the smoking chestnuts out of the fire.