Paulo Wanchope was looking ahead to the England game, in the giddy aftermath of Costa Rica’s victory over Italy when he made the only stumble of his country’s day. “England will keep fighting because they still have a small chance to go through,” the Costa Rica assistant manager said.
Wanchope managed to recover his thread after being corrected. There are no more chances for the nation in which he once played for Derby County, West Ham United and Manchester City. “Oh, yeah … but I am surprised because England play good football,” he said. “It’s been a big surprise that England lost both of their games because they play good football and create chances. They were unlucky in both games. Hopefully, in a few years’ time, they will be better.”
It was Friday afternoon, it was boiling hot in Recife and, for Wanchope and Costa Rica’s team of heroes, there was plenty that had still to sink in, not least what they had achieved. When they woke on Saturday morning, it remained gloriously real. Yes, they really had followed up their electric comeback win over Uruguay with a deserved victory against Italy to secure their place in the last 16 of the World Cup.
The England game in Belo Horizonte on Tuesday was meant to be decisive. For England. Before the tournament, Roy Hodgson had hoped his team would enter it in the position to get the result to take them through. Even after the pendulum had swung upon the defeat to Uruguay on Thursday, it might still have had something on it for England. Then Costa Rica stunned Italy.
It has been rendered as a dead rubber for England but, remarkably, it is not much more for Costa Rica, although they would like to ensure they advance as the group winners as it would most likely keep them apart from Colombia in the last 16. Their job has essentially been completed and the talk has now turned towards how far this unheralded group might go. The quarter-finals suddenly do not seem too far away.
Of Jorge Luis Pinto’s squad, nine play in the Costa Rican league, three in Major League Soccer, five across Scandinavia and one in Russia and Belgium. That leaves Keylor Navas from Levante in Spain, Júnior Díaz (Mainz, Germany), Bryan Ruiz (Fulham, with a recent loan at PSV Eindhoven in Holland) and Joel Campbell (Arsenal, with a recent loan at Olympiakos in Greece).
The players are consumed by national pride at what feels like the adventure of a lifetime, but they might also have put themselves in the shop window. “I know for sure that a few of the players will want to do well and end up in the Premier League,” Wanchope said.
That can wait. For now, immortality beckons or, perhaps more accurately, the chance to gild their immortality. This is Costa Rica’s fourth appearance at a World Cup and only once previously, at Italia 90, have they make it out of the group. At that tournament, having beaten Scotland and Sweden, they lost to Czechoslovakia in the last 16.
“I know that the players want to impress the world by getting three points against a team like England,” Wanchope said. “Even though we are through and they are out, beating England would still mean a lot to our team because England have great players. We know that we can go far at this World Cup. We have just beaten another world champion and we need to enjoy that and then, against England, we will definitely play to win because of all that it would mean.”
Campbell, who will return to Arsenal for pre-season and is determined to make the grade at the club, summed up the heady mixture of fearlessness and excitement in the Costa Rica dressing-room. “We are not thinking about who we get in the last 16,” he said. “It does not matter to us. We have been in a group with three champions of the world and we have shown that we can beat anyone.
“We always believed we could do this. Football is not decided by the shirt you are wearing. With work and effort, you can win against anyone. We are very satisfied, very happy with what we have achieved but we will keep working to do more. This is unforgettable. We are part of history. Nobody would have put a single dollar on this team qualifying but there you go. It can change football in Costa Rica. These are the best days of my career.”
