Costa Rica play their last match in San José before the World Cup on Wednesday and the stakes are high. In January, Los Ticos lost their two games – 4-0 against Chile and 1-0 against South Korea – and, although the national coach, Jorge Luis Pinto, was without his best players for those games, a third defeat would have a significant impact on the team's confidence before the World Cup.
That confidence is high before the game against Paraguay, however, as Costa Rica are hard to beat in front of their own fans and had a perfect home record in the last round of qualification for the finals in Brazil. Pinto's men beat USA, Jamaica, Honduras, Panama and Mexico at the National Stadium.
Pinto has a strong squad to choose from for Wednesday's game with all the players based in Europe and the US – Keylor Navas (Levante), Bryan Ruiz (PSV), Joel Campbell (Olympiakos) and Álvaro Saborío (Real Salt Lake) – included. "The players are in good shape and they have been working hard with their clubs, which is important, because that is not something we can do in three or four days," Pinto told Al Día this week.
"I am happy on one hand and very aware on the other. We are playing some tough teams [in the World Cup] and I am watching a lot of English and Italian football at the weekends.
"If something goes wrong I will get the blame but that is why I love José Mourinho's style, he is aware of all the details."
Much of the focus will be on the striker Saborío, who is in pre-season with Real Salt Lake. He is the best goalscorer in the team and Pinto's main physical threat up front. He may be a little bit rusty, though, and may not last the 90 minutes. He did not start in the last qualifiers but scored the winner against Mexico.
Big game for Bryan Ruiz. The forward has had a good start at PSV after leaving Fulham, scoring three goals in six games. Now he needs to prove that the lack of playing time at Fulham has not affected his international football.