Costa Rica confident even in a group that includes Brazil
MOSCOW — Costa Rica didn’t lose a game in regulation in the World Cup four years ago in Brazil, where it was eliminated in a penalty-kick shootout.
But it did lose the element of surprise with its magical run to the quarterfinals. So Minnesota United defender Francisco Calvo doesn’t expect anyone to take the Central Americans lightly in Russia.
“We have set the bar very high,” he said in Spanish. “Costa Rica no longer is a little team that can be beat easily. Right now everyone in the world looks at Costa Rica in a different way.
“We hope in this World Cup we follow the same path we took in the last one.”
Costa Rica could become the first CONCACAF team to reach the quarterfinals in consecutive World Cups, not a small feat for a country that had qualified for consecutive World Cups just one other time. For Marco Urena, however, simply returning to the quarterfinals wouldn’t be enough. He said Costa Rica must go further.
“We want to improve on what we did in Brazil,” the Los Angeles Football Club forward said. “That’s the minimum we want. That’s what we’re focused on.”
Urena is one of 12 holdovers from the 2014 team; even defending champion Germany doesn’t have that much World Cup experience.
“We have an advantage because we have so many experienced players,” said Urena, one of four LAFC players in Russia. “We know what it’s like to play in a World Cup. We’re a mature group. We know to play in these tournaments.”
The most important returnee is Keylor Navas, who in 2014 was nominated for the Golden Glove, given to the tournament’s top goalkeeper. He allowed just two goals in five games, shutting out Italy, England and the Netherlands. Navas has since parlayed that success into three Champions League titles with Real Madrid.
The most important newcomer is coach Oscar Ramirez. Colombian Jorge Luis Pinto managed Costa Rica in Brazil, but left after the World Cup in a contract dispute. He was replaced by assistant Paulo Wanchope, but Wanchope stepped down less than a year later following a postmatch brawl with a steward. Ramirez, a successful club coach who had joined Wanchope’s staff just a week earlier, took over.
Costa Rica has continued to play well under Ramirez’s leadership, reaching the semifinals of last summer’s Gold Cup and beating the U.S. twice – by a combined 6-0 – in World Cup qualifying.
Vancouver Whitecaps defender Kendall Watson, one of six MLS players on Costa Rica’s roster, said the combination of World Cup veterans and a coach who has never been there has created an interesting mix.
“It has a base from what Pinto left,” he said of the team. “All the experience that they won in the World Cup is helping us in the present. And Oscar Ramirez, he brought us new things and we feel free to play. “It’s a totally different thing.” That experience could come in handy in pool play because Costa Rica is in the most difficult group, one that includes second ranked Brazil and No. 6 Switzerland. That makes Costa Rica’s opener with Serbia the team’s most important first-round game, where anything short of a win could sink its chances of advancing.
“The first game is going to dictate a lot about what you have to do next. If we win it, that’s going to open a lot of things for the next match,” Watson said. “None of the matches are going to be easy.”
But none of the matches in Brazil were easy, either. The difference this time is that Costa Rica is a known contender.
“We know the responsibility that we have after what we achieved. It’s not the same Costa Rica that went to Brazil,” said Urena, who sustained facial fractures in an April game with LAFC and was fitted with a protective mask before joining the Costa Rican team in training. “There’s pressure. But there’s also a challenge.
“On the field we’re 11 versus 11. Whatever someone has accomplished, at the end of the day …it’s 11 versus 11. Yes, they are talented. They have things. We have them, too.”