Costa Rica has changed coaches five times since the World Cup in Russia.
He hired an Argentine with Uruguayan nationality, Gustavo Matosas, a former player in the nineties for Málaga, Lleida and Valladolid, who resigned because he was bored.
Verbatim.
“I didn't know it was so boring to lead a team.
I do not feel productive, sometimes it seems that I am on vacation, ”he confessed when he left after 11 months in office.
He then bet on one of those eternal house interims, Rónald González, and had to throw him out after 11 games without winning.
And in the end he found a lane with an old Colombian fox, Luis Fernando Suárez (62 years old), who had already led Ecuador and Honduras to two World Cups, in 2006 and 2014, respectively.
What does not change is the power of their elders.
The ethical selection system is, above all, gerontocracy.
Eight years after reaching the top with the quarterfinals of Brazil 2014 (they defeated Italy and Uruguay, and did not lose until the penalty shootout against the Netherlands), there are still Keylor Navas under the sticks (35 years old), Óscar Duarte (33) in defence, Yeltsin Tejada (30) and Celso Borges (34) in the middle, Joel Campbell (30) up front and Bryan Ruiz (37) as a fine stylist, as well as the winger Bryan Oviedo (32), who only missed that appointment due to an injury.
And the reality is that they do not travel to Qatar out of deference or respect for gray hair, but as the main protagonists of the group against which Spain will debut (Wednesday, November 23, 5:00 p.m.; Movistar).
Most of them are expected in the starting eleven.
At the head of this group, the PSG goalkeeper, despite reaching the World Cup without a single minute with his club this season.
The new coach of the Parisian team, Christophe Galtier, already warned that he would not rotate in goal, as Mauricio Pochettino did, and the one chosen every three days has been Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Nothing surprising.
When Navas leaves in a week at the Al Thumama stadium against La Roja, he will not play an official match for five months, since the play-off against New Zealand on June 14 (1-0).
In the last selection window prior to the World Cup, in September, Costa Rica traveled to South Korea to face this country and Uzbekistan, and he stayed in Europe.
He even photographed himself in a tent on the Extremadura estate of the bullfighter Alejandro Talavante together with Nacho Fernández and Sergio Ramos.
With the latter,
An old friend and colleague at the Parque de los Príncipes, he also shares a fondness for horses.
"Navas Salas (by his wife's last name)" is the name of the goalkeeper's livestock.
anita mikilona
His great 2014 World Cup finished laying the carpet for him that summer in the direction of the Bernabéu and the plan for the Ticos in Doha is for Keylor to continue to keep the fort standing.
A team more concerned with removing than amassing the ball is expected, especially if they have Spain and Germany as clients in the group stage.
Resist and wait.
The Qatari ambassador in Costa Rica, Khamis Rashid Al Kaabi, in the official farewell to the team before getting on the plane, already took it upon himself to remind them that they will need another feat: "I know that your group is very difficult, but nothing is impossible." , told them.
The older ones are also joined by some interesting youngsters, such as left winger Jewison Bennette (18, from Sunderland in the English second division), who provided the assist for Campbell's goal against New Zealand;
Anthony Contreras (22);
or Brandon Aguilera (19), owned by Nottingham Forest, although now on loan from the Costa Rican Guanacaste.
Navas and company were the last to close the pass to Qatar.
It will be his sixth participation.
The first round of qualifying went so crooked for them (they only won one game out of seven) that another change of coach was not far off.
But they accelerated and managed to get into the repechage.
At the beginning of his growth, at the end of last winter, a federation employee consulted with the PSG goalkeeper what message to send on social networks to celebrate the 0-1 victory against Jamaica, and the answer was: "Añíta mikilona" , which in the Bribri indigenous language means “Together until the end”.
A phrase with which they continued to celebrate the good results (six wins and a draw in the second round) that opened the door to Doha for them.
They will welcome you to Spain with the same conspiracy: “Añíta mikilona”.
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