An unfit number 20 battling to keep up with the game. Photo / David Hampton
OPINION:
Perspiration. That's the only way to describe the experience of playing football in Costa Rica. It's hot, humid and unrelenting. And we're not talking about the kind of humidity we get in Auckland. It's humidity that drenches your head within a few minutes of playing under the evening lights. With each passing minute, you feel the weight of your clothing increase as it becomes more and more saturated.
This experience can be attributed to visiting my retired Argentinean in-laws in Costa Rica during December - a stay which extended to three months due to the border restrictions. During that time, I played a few games of local club football - and that first muggy night remains seared in my memory.
When I moaned about the intensity of the heat and humidity, the neighbour who invited me along for this game laughed. "You should try playing at midday like we usually do," he jibed, before lightly jogging on.
The heaviness of the air tends to make time slow down. At one stage, it seemed as if the pedometer on my Fitbit had packed up. It turns out I was just an imported unfit sloth being made patently aware of my inadequacy. I was simply moving slow-motion – well at least compared to the speed of the game happening around me.
These are the conditions Costa Ricans are used to playing in from a young age. They don't have cold winters or mild summers so conducive to a casual runaround. Instead, they have a wet season and dry season – the heat and humidity are always non-negotiable. The high temperatures in Qatar will not strike fear in the hearts of Los Ticos, but the dryness of the air could be a factor.
In this context, it's good that the All Whites have gone to Qatar early to give the players enough time to acclimatise to the conditions of playing in the Middle East. You need only look at the 6-1 drubbing Argentina suffered at the hands of Bolivia in 2009 when they were made to play in the mountains without sufficient preparation for evidence of the need to acclimatise. Fortunately, studies have shown that acclimatisation to higher temperatures can occur as quickly as seven to 10 days. Chances are, the All Whites are already whipping out their cardigans when the temperature drops below 30C.
The conditions in which you play from a young age are key to shaping the player you become as you age. For Costa Ricans, their players are forged in equatorial heat – and this is something that stays with them no matter where they go.
But there's also something more ethereal that impacts the way football players go about the game. Even at the amateur level, you can tell quite a lot about a country's football culture. It's something passed down from generation to generation. There's a philosophy that comes with it.
The English, for instance, have a never-say-die attitude. If you lose the ball there's always some grizzled midfielder screaming at you to retrieve it. The Argentineans meanwhile are some of the grittiest defenders you'll encounter. You're given so little time in the social game that you often need to wriggle your way out of tight spaces, using your wits and quick passing – and, of course, a touch of gamesmanship. In South Africa, onlookers will sometimes derive as much joy from a well-executed "shibobo" (nutmeg) as they do from an average goal – this is after all the football culture that introduced dabbing and "Kasi Flava" in open play. The Brazilians gave the world "joga bonito" – and no matter how organised a team might be, you can always see elements of that beauty in the way they play. Even though Italy's national team no longer plays in the style of catenaccio, defenders will still high five and celebrate their resolute ability to break down your best attempts at scoring.
Yes, these are broad-sweeping generalisations, but there are nuggets of truth scattered through this that captures the essence of the way the game is played.
So what is it that defines the Costa Rican approach to football?
One thing that struck me during the amateur game was the willingness of the best player on the pitch to play at centre back. This was highly unusual. Normally, you'd see the best dribbler and ball carrier playing further up the field to maximise the potential of scoring. But here, you had a clearly superior player sacrificing his ego to give the team a better chance of winning.
While nothing more than a coincidence, it seems strangely fitting that Keylor Navas, the most recognisable player in the current Costa Rican lineup, plays goalkeeper. He may be 35, but don't for a moment underestimate how good this player is. The former Real Madrid man regularly keeps Italian Gianluigi Donnarumma, widely regarded as the world's best keeper, on the bench at his current club PSG. He's the type of keeper capable of frustrating the hell out of forwards in a tight game. And if you have any doubt on the difference a keeper can make, just ask the front line of Liverpool what they think of Thibaut Courtois after the Champions League final.
Countering that age are two skilful, energetic youngsters who are catching the eye of major European clubs. Anthony Contreras and Brandon Aguilera both showed what they're capable of when they pulled strings in a 2-0 victory against a strong United States team in qualification. If the All Whites lose track of these two in the Qatari heat, they might find themselves chasing long shadows all afternoon.
The other observation about the amateur game came from the opponents we were playing that January evening. Our team went up 4-1, but the opponents didn't seem defeated at any stage. They kept pushing and pushing, bringing the score back to 4-3 – where the game eventually ended on the thinnest margins.
Costa Rica may be one of only two countries in the world not to have a standing military, but don't confuse this pacifism with a lack of fighting spirit.
This unwillingness to accept defeat is entrenched in the philosophy of Los Ticos. The team was all but dead and buried around the midpoint of the qualification period. The pundits on television were already conducting the autopsy on only the second Costa Rican team since the turn of the century not to qualify for the World Cup. Even my mother-in-law weighed in, simply noting the team was "malisimo" (torrid).
But there was a turning point that happened. During a visit to a "soda" (Costa Rican word for local restaurants) in early February, I noticed a small television screen blaring in the corner. A group of people were huddled around watching Jamaica take on Costa Rica in a key qualifying match.
It was around the hour mark when Costa Rica won a penalty after a foul on their long-time standout forward Joel Campbell.
Celso Borges would see his penalty saved and heads in the "soda" dropped instantly. It looked inevitable that the team would be enjoying the World Cup from their living rooms in Costa Rica.
It's the type of moment we often see breaking the momentum and spirit of a team. But then, only a minute later, Joel Campbell buried a shot in the left-hand corner of the Jamaican net, starting a run that would see Costa Rica go undefeated for the rest of their qualifying period, defeating the United States and arguably the best Canadian football team in history along the way.
Teams that don't know when they're beaten are incredibly dangerous and difficult to play against – and this is something the All Whites will have to contend with as they duel with Los Ticos for 90 career-defining minutes on June 15.
ESPN football writer Gabriele Marcotti often says that football is a low-scoring game and that single-match knockouts offer a brutal exposition of this. You don't have to be the best team over 90 minutes to win. You sometimes just need to grind out a single goal and outlast your opponents.
Next week's game will have the tightest margins as these two perennial underdogs go toe to toe. And no matter which way it goes, we'll be left with around five million broken hearts at the final whistle. The only question is whether they'll be in the western or eastern hemisphere.
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