Costa Rica

Germany 2006 was Costa Rica's third appearance at the FIFA World Cup. Previously they had qualified for Italia 1990 and Korea/Japan 2002.

Brazilian Alexandre Guimaraes, who was in charge in Korea/Japan 2002, replaced Jorge Luis Pinto in April 2005 and helped guide Costa Rica to qualification. Their run-up included victories over Guatemala, Panama, Trinidad & Tobago and the USA. However, they lost their friendly at the end of May, 4-0 to Ukraine.

Costa Rica World Cup profile continues below

Pundits highlighted the quality of defender Gilberto Martinez, the strength of Walter Centeno, the experience of midfielder Jafet Soto and the confident attacking of former Manchester City and Derby striker Paulo Wanchope, who was to retire at the end of the World Cup.

Wanchope is Costa Rica's all-time top scorer with 43 goals in 67 international matches before the World Cup finals.

Before the finals, Costa Rica were ranked 21st in the world, but they failed to impress in the finals and lost to Ecuador and to hosts Germany and therefore failed to qualify for the last 16. Already out of the World Cup they also lost their third game against Poland 2-1.

Costa Rica Squad (by shirt number): 1 Alvaro Mesen 2 Jervis Drummond 3 Luis Marin 4 Michael Umana 5 Gilberto Martinez 6 Danny Fonseca 7 Cristian Bolanos 8 Mauricio Solis 9 Paulo Wanchope 10 Walter Centeno 11 Ronald Gomez 12 Leonardo Gonzalez 13 Kurt Bernard 14 Randall Azofeifa 15 Harold Wallace 16 Carlos Hernandez 17 Gabriel Badilla 18 Jose Porras 19 Alvaro Saborio 20 Douglas Sequeira 21 Victor Nunez 22 Michael Rodriguez 23 Wardy Alfaro