by Rod Hughes

Look out, soccer clubs! Costa Rican entrepenuer and the Liberia First Division club’s owner, Nario Sotela,has his checkbook out and is shopping for players long before the final championship match. And his specific target seems to be Alajuela.

He has just signed Minor Díaz of the Cartago club (13 goals in the 2007-8 season) and recently purchased the services of Luis Marín, 33, who comes off two seasons with the Maccabi Netanya club in Israel. He is awaiting arrival of French player Michel Gafau, a teammate of Jacques Remy in Strasbourg. But Sotela is also seeking the likes of Victor “Mambo” Núñez, Harold Wallace and Pablo Salazar, all of Alajuela. He told the daily La Nación that if Saprissa’s front office doesn’t want to renew the contracts of their veterans, he would gladly take them off their hands, as well.

He also let slip that he might contract Colombian head coach Carlos Restrepo recently fired by Heredia. It is obvious that he is out for veterans of all kinds and wants experience. None of the names he bandies about are novices. All this public shopping benefits players who have records and can demand a higher salary for contract renewals. Careful, Sotela the raider is out there!

Sportswriter Trashes Stadium

La Nación sportswriter José Luis Rodríguez reacted as if ST. Center in Aserrí, scene of Brujas’s recent triumph over University of Costa Rica, were a personal insult.He wrote Thursday that the stadium looks more like a small town park where kids play pick-up matches than a First Division stadium. Now, remember that Brujas has no really permanent home but plays many of its “home” matches there. Escazú is the franchise’s home but real estate prices there are sky high and the slope on which most of the town is built is hardly apt for a big stadium and its attendent parking lot.

Granted, the press box and the first class seats project nearly out on the pitch. And ST Center’s sidelines are perilously close to the cement walls. And there’s a lack of seating for a club that could conceivibly play in a championship match this year. They have played in the National Stadium in La Sabana Park but that will shortly be torn down to make way for the new 35,000-capacity, $72 million stadium financed by China. So the club is not likely to please critics like Rodríguez. Besides, Brujas was, previous to its franchise move to Escazú, the Guanacaste club based in the provincial town of Nicoya. Their old stadium was a mess and one year a section of the splintery wooden stands collapsed.

As we mentioned in a recent blog, the Brujas nomadic way of life has its upside. “Away” matches hold no terrors when you have no real home.