Q COSTA RICA NEWS – “How nice to be TICO and see a country like this united regardless of race, colour political creed or favourite team, just to see the Sele (Costa Rican national team) and that clamor to tell the world we are one” extolling the ‘pura vida’ on Facebook this morning, following last night’s trashing of the U.S. national team, at the National Stadium in La Sabana.
The U.S. lacked defense, the Sele taking advantage of the mistakes, drilling in 4 goals.
Johan Venegas scored in the 43rd minute, Cristian Bolaños doubled the lead in the 69th and second-half substitute Joel Campbell beat beleaguered goalkeeper Brad Guzan twice, in the 74th and 77th minutes.
In the U.S., the Los Angeles Times headline said: “U.S. suffers embarrassing loss to Costa Rica, in the most one-sided loss for the Americans in World Cup qualifying since 1980 — and the most one-sided shutout loss in 59 years.”
Combined with last week’s loss to Mexico, the U.S. has opened the final round of World Cup qualifying with consecutive losses for the first time, falling to the bottom of the six-team table and leaving its streak of seven straight World Cup appearances in danger.
In Costa Rica the mood was completely different. The morning Telenoticias newscast at 6:00am started with the sports and went on for almost 30 minutes with a series of reports before touching on the ‘hard news’.
Without question Costa Ricans this morning did not care about the daily traffic nightmare and all the other stuff, just the euphoria of the Sele’s victory and they now sit at the top of the heap in World Cup qualifying with six points. Mexico and Panama each have 4 points; Honduras has 3; and Trinidad and Tobago and the United States with 0.
