Costa Rica national football team

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Costa Rica

Nickname

Los Ticos, Tricolor, Sele

Association

Federación Costarricense
de Fútbol

Confederation

CONCACAF (North America)

Head coach

Hernan Medford

Most caps

Luis Marín (123)

Top scorer

Rolando Fonseca (47)

Home stadium

Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica

FIFA code

CRC

FIFA ranking

Highest FIFA ranking

13 (1990)

Lowest FIFA ranking

93 (July 1996)

Elo ranking

Highest Elo ranking

14 (March 1960)

Lowest Elo ranking

81 (March 1983)





First kit





Second kit

First international

Costa Rica 7 - 0 El Salvador

(Guatemala City, Guatemala; Sept 14, 1921)

Biggest win

Costa Rica 12 - 0 Puerto Rico

(Barranquilla, Colombia; December 10, 1946)

Biggest defeat

Mexico 7 - 0 Costa Rica

(Mexico City, Mexico; August 17, 1975)

World Cup

Appearances

3 (First in 1990)

Best result

Round 2, 1990

CONCACAF Gold Cup

Appearances

7 (First in 1991)

Best result

Second place, 2002

Wikinews has news related to:

Germany wins, 4-2 over Costa Rica in first World Cup match

The Costa Rica national football team, nicknamed Los Ticos, is the national team of Costa Rica and is controlled by the Federación Costarricense de Fútbol. They have qualified for three World Cups, reaching the last sixteen on their debut in 1990 and putting up a solid showing in 2002 where they had the misfortune to be drawn in the same group as eventual champions Brazil and third-place finishing Turkey. Recently Los Ticos qualified for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, where it was the Costa Ricans' worst World Cup finish ever. The team finished 31st out of 32 teams.

Costa Rica's best finish in the CONCACAF Gold Cup was second in 2002. They won the UNCAF Nations Cup six times. Recently, Costa Rica have been invited to participate in three Copa América, making the quarterfinals on their last two visits.

1 History
2 Current Coaching Staff
3 World Cup record
4 Gold Cup record
5 UNCAF Nations Cup record
6 Copa América record
7 Pan American Games record
8 World Cup games
9 Trivia
10 2006 World Cup Squad
- 10.1 2006 World Cup information
11 Past players
12 Selected current famous players
13 External links

Costa Rica has a long-standing football culture and tradition. Throughout the 50s and 60s, and were very much the second strongest team in the CONCACAF zone behind Mexico, finishing runners-up in World Cup qualifying in the 1958, 1962 and 1966 qualifiers. Stars of the side in this period Ruben Jimenez, Errol Daniels, Leonel Hernandez and Edgar Marin.

However, at the end of the 60s their fortunes would decline as other teams in the region such as Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, Trinidad & Tobago and Canada came to the fore. Costa Rica failed to make the final round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying until the 1986 qualifiers.

The 1990 World Cup qualifiers represented a breakthrough. The expulsion of regional powerhouse Mexico from qualifying after they fielded overage players in a youth tournament resulted in a very open field. Costa Rica topped the final qualifying group to qualify for the World Cup for the first time. In the 1990 World Cup they would defeat Sweden and Scotland to reach the second round.

Once again, Costa Rica would reach the final stages of qualifying in the 1998 series, but fell short of qualification for the 1998 World Cup. They have since qualified for the 2002 and 2006 World Cups.

Head Coach

Hernan Medford

Assistant Coaches

Oscar Ramírez

Head Athletic Trainer

Marcelo Tulbovitz

Goalkeeper's Coach

Luis Gabelo Conejo

Year	Finish	Matches	Wins	Draws	Losses	Goals Scored	Goals Against
1930 - 1934	Did not enter
1938	Withdrew
1950	Did not enter
1954	Entry not accepted by FIFA
1958 - 1986	Did not qualify
1990	Round 2	4	2	0	2	4	6
1994 - 1998	Did not qualify
2002	Round 1	3	1	1	1	5	6
2006	Round 1	3	0	0	3	3	9
Total		10	3	1	6	12	21

1991 - Fourth place
1993 - Third place shared
1996 - Did not qualify
1998 - Round 1
2000 - Quarterfinals
2002 - Second place
2003 - Fourth place
2005 - Quarterfinals

1991 - Winners
1993 - Second place
1995 - Fourth place
1997 - Winners
1999 - Winners
2001 - Second place
2003 - Winners
2005 - Winners
2007 - Winners

Starting from 1993, CONMEBOL has invited teams from other confederations to participate in their confederation championship, Copa América. Costa Rica has taken part as one of the invited teams three times.

1993 to 1995 - Not invited
1997 - Round 1
1999 - Not invited
2001 - Quarterfinals
2004 - Quarterfinals

1951 - Silver Medal
1955 - Did not compete
1959 - Fifth place
1963 to 1971 - Did not compete
1975 - Fourth place
1979 - Round 2
1983 to 1991 - Did not compete
1995 - Quarterfinals
1999 - Round 1
2003 - Did not compete

Scotland 0-1 Costa Rica
Brazil 1-0 Costa Rica
Costa Rica 2-1 Sweden (Qualified for 2nd round)
Costa Rica 1-4 Czechoslovakia

China 0-2 Costa Rica
Turkey 1-1 Costa Rica
Costa Rica 2-5 Brazil

Germany 4-2 Costa Rica
Ecuador 3-0 Costa Rica
Costa Rica 1-2 Poland

Costa Rica is the only CONCACAF team to ever beat Mexico in the Azteca Stadium, during the World Cup qualifying round (1-2, June 2001)
Costa Rica is the only Central American team to qualify to the World Cup tournament consecutively, in 2002 and 2006;
Costa Rica holds the record for most participations to World Cup tournaments of a Central American team, with three appearances Italy 1990, Japan&Korea 2002 and Germany 2006;
Costa Rica was the first Central American team to beat a European team in the World Cup (Sweden - Costa Rica 1-2, Scotland - Costa Rica 0-1, Italy '90)
In 2002 World Cup, Costa Rica was placed in the initial group of the 1st place (Brazil) and 3rd place (Turkey) at 2002 World Cup. The team tied against Turkey and lost 2-5 against Brazil, however, was the only team in the World Cup to score more than once against Brazil.

Head coach: Alexander Guimaraes

Costa Rica named a 28-man preliminary squad on 25 April, which was gradually trimmed to the final 23 by 15 May. ^[1]

No.	Pos.	Player	DoB/Age	Caps	Club
1	GK	Álvaro Mesén	24 December 1972	38	Club Sport Herediano
2	DF	Jervis Drummond	8 September 1976	58	Deportivo Saprissa
3	DF	Luis Marín	10 August 1974	123	Maccabi Netanya
4	DF	Michael Umaña	16 July 1982	21	Brujas
5	DF	Gilberto Martínez	1 October 1979	58	A.S. Roma
6	DF	Danny Fonseca	7 November 1979	24	Cartagines
7	MF	Christian Bolaños	17 May 1984	18	Deportivo Saprissa
8	MF	Mauricio Solís	13 December 1972	110	Comunicaciones
9	FW	Paulo Wanchope	31 July 1976	72	FC Tokyo
10	MF	Walter Centeno	6 October 1974	96	Deportivo Saprissa
11	FW	Rónald Gómez	21 January 1975	83	Deportivo Saprissa
12	DF	Leonardo González	21 November 1980	39	Club Sport Herediano
13	FW	Kurt Bernard	8 August 1977	4	Puntarenas
14	MF	Randall Azofeifa	30 December 1984	6	Deportivo Saprissa
15	DF	Harold Wallace	7 September 1975	80	LD Alajuelense
16	MF	Carlos Hernández	9 April 1982	19	LD Alajuelense
17	DF	Gabriel Badilla	30 June 1984	8	Deportivo Saprissa
18	GK	José Porras	8 November 1970	19	Deportivo Saprissa
19	FW	Álvaro Saborío	25 March 1982	25	Deportivo Saprissa
20	MF	Douglas Sequeira	23 August 1977	31	Tromsø I.L.
21	FW	Victor Núñez	15 April 1980	3	C.S. Cartaginés
22	DF	Michael Rodríguez	30 December 1981	3	LD Alajuelense
23	GK	Wardy Alfaro Pizarro	31 December 1977	2	LD Alajuelense

Costa Rica lost their opening game in Group A to hosts Germany. The final score was 4-2. Both Costa Rica's goals came from ex-Derby County striker, Wanchope. Germany goals came from two great strikes by Phillipp Lahm and Torsten Frings, and two goals from Miroslav Klose. Costa Rica's second fixture was against Ecuador in Hamburg on June 15th, being defeated with a score of 3-0, effectively getting them out of the cup whilst Germany and Ecuador booked their places in the next round. The team eventually lost their final game against the Poles by a score of two goals to one, the goals coming from Bartosz Bosacki (2) for Poland and Ronald Gomez for Costa Rica.