ALL HAIL COSTA RICA, CONCACAF

This World Cup continues to excite and amaze for as much as we would have seen more goals at this stage than we have for the past few tournaments, the CONCACAF region would have also witnessed Costa Rica represent extremely well. The Costa Ricans, one of four teams qualifying from his reason have so far beat two of the world’s top 10 teams while eliminating another without even taking the field against them in what, for them, was supposed to be a difficult group.

So far CONCACAF teams have done really well. Mexico beat Cameroon and drew with Brazil. The United States beat Ghana in a keenly contested match. Costa Rica however, have topped them all. In a group with three former winners of the World Cup – Italy, four time winners; Uruguay, the two-time champions and England, winners in 1966, were all more favoured to be among the two teams to advance from what is widely said to be the Group of Death (Group D). Someone however, must have forgot to tell Los Ticos because after playing Uruguay and thrashing them 3-1, they took on a more formidable Italy and dispatched them by a goal to win to advance from the group stage for the first time since 1990.

Bryan Ruiz’s 44th minute goal against the four-time champions put paid the England’s chances of qualifying. England suffered consecutive 2-0 defeats to Italy and Uruguay and now are left to wonder why they were unable to do better with a young and talented team. Costa Rica meanwhile, along with its CONCACAF counterparts have made a strong case for the region to that that extra half place to bring to four the number of teams that can qualify for the greatest show on earth. Other than Honduras that have been disappointing, no other team from the region has so far lost a game at this competition. It speaks volumes to how much closer the region is to the rest of the world, a point significantly reinforced by Los Ticos, Mexico and the USA. Honduras has more games the come so let’s see what they do in those games.

Until then however, we celebrate with Costa Rica who play England next. Based on current form we could very well see the winning trend continue.