Previa de la Copa del Mundo: Los Ticos – Un pequeño pez en un gran estanque.

Given how many Canadians it hosted during COVID, Costa Rica seems like a wonderful place to visit. It has two coasts,

and an abundance of delightful tourist locations to explore. If you feel like an adventure, here’s a link to their tourist bureau.

But we’re here to talk about footy.

Here is the official roster, in the language of romantics and don_t:

And here are their new jerseys.

They have been described as “too simple for its own good.” Which… oof. They changed up their look in December 2021, with intentions to make their kit more streamlined. As always, the colours reflect the national flag, and the new crest (see header) represents the national coat of arms – specifically, the three different ranges of volcanoes that give the country its geographical character.

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Dammit! I turned this back into a travel brochure. Okay – back to the footy.

They have four veterans anchoring the team – Keylor Navas (35 years old), Kendall Waston (34), Celso Borges (34), and Bryan Ruiz (37). Of the four, Navas is the “star”, having 107 caps for his country, having played on all three recent (2014, 2018, 2022) World Cup teams, backstopped Real Madrid to their three consecutive Champions League trophies, and was the 2017-18 Champions League “Goalkeeper of the Season”.

Navas didn’t play in the pre-tournament friendlies, but head coach Suarez saw that as a future advantage. “I take this (his absence for friendlies) as a possibility to see goalkeepers for the future, for that reason he is not there.” That logic… actually makes sense, especially in light of one of Canada’s goalies, Maxime Crepeau, getting his leg absolutely shattered in the MLS Cup Final.

Of the remainder, Kendall Waston is the most familiar to me because he played for the Whitecaps for four seasons.

He is a solid defender that isn’t afraid to use his elbows like a Muay Thai fighter, as proven by his 32 yellow cards during his four years in Vancouver.

This is Los Ticos third consecutive World Cup. Unlike previous years when Canada sucked, Costa Rica had to play an international qualifier in order to get in because they didn’t finish top-3 in CONCACAF. That had to sting considering that they beat Canada twice during qualification. Nonetheless, they won the last qualification spot in Doha in June. The prize for beating New Zealand was a place in Group E alongside Spain, Germany and Japan.

They had a friendly at home against Nigeria on November 9th, and it was a 2-0 victory for a side looking to try and hang with much tougher Group-stage opponents. I’m assuming their November 17th match against Iraq is their attempt at desynchronosis before the tournament starts.

[As an aside, if you want to know how profitable going to the World Cup is, have a read at this article. Aside from Nigeria losing out on the $12 million from FIFA that goes to all qualifiers, including $4.4 million for the players, their wildly popular jerseys cost them their 8% royalty from Nike. They sold three million jerseys in 2018 at $90 per. That’s a loss of nearly $22 million. So the next prince that tries to scam you might actually be from the Soccer Federation.]

Prediction:

They’re gonna get smoked.

They may have made the quarters in 2014, but that required a lot of favourable outcomes going their way and a group-round victory against an Italian team that was hilariously underprepared for the tournament. This time, they might be able to eke out a tie against Japan, but it’s a Group of Death. Even if they somehow manage to get all ties, those three points are a rough pass when you expect Germany and Spain to win at least one game.

I’m not sure which journalist is going to make the Group E World War Two reference, but when they do at least KFC Germany will provide the chicken.