First published by Ace Magazine, Liverpool online. June 2014.

The land of fantasy is at times such an intriguing place to let your mind wander off to. In the world of fantasy anybody can become a hero; the least likely person can walk into the sunset with their head held high having saved another’s life or the hopes of a nation. Whilst nobody on the pitch in Recife surely thought for a single minute they would be the one to take on the might of established convention, the potency of F.I.F.A.’s tight grip on the game, fantasy became reality as Costa Rica, destroyers of football establishment in the likes of Italy, Uruguay, by then unfancied and England, made the quarter finals of the 2014 World Cup by beating the equally surprised last 16 cohorts Greece.

To suggest now that Costa Rica is a minnow on the world stage is an insult, they have taken on four teams and beaten three. If this was the much talked of powerful Premiership this would be like suggesting Southampton or West Bromwich Albion couldn’t be top of the league after four games, they would be top because they have deserved to be so, by winning games. The same goes for Costa Rica. Yes they may have surprised many, yes the first 90 minutes of play against Greece was perhaps, to be kind, a little on the dull, repetitive side. However they had made the last 16 by playing football, not by default. Yes you could argue, like West Bromwich, they haven’t played anybody truly decent yet, they haven’t played Argentina, Columbia, Germany or Brazil but like Wimbledon in 1989, sometimes you just need that one extra piece of quality that nobody else possesses; belief!

It was belief that saw Costa Rica’s goal keeper have such an impact on the game, that saw Joel Campbell run his legs into the ground, that witnessed this team from Central America play with stirring confidence that no matter what Celtic striker Georgios Samaras threw their way, no matter what the champions of Europe in 2004 did, Costa Rica were going to stay in this World Cup longer than anybody could have foreseen them do.

Even with the pocket of Greece fans who have been able to afford to travel to Brazil after the collapse of their economy chanting “Hellas! Hellas!” in the time honoured way that evoked tales of Jason taking on the Minotaur or the noise that would have heard all the way to Athens as King Leonidas decided to draw a line in the sand against the onslaught to come, the Costa Rican’s, not without their own heroes of literature to call upon, were un-moveable.

It may have been all so different if Georgios Samaras had been able to work out why he was forever being blown offside, in most cases by fractions of an inch. There though is the difference in the end between winning and losing, it’s sometimes boils down to who can time the pass accurately. Both sides were guilty as charged of losing possession at times more quickly than a man with a thousand pounds in his hand and wondering why he was forever being mugged. Even after 20 minutes, viewers around the world would be forgiven if they stated out loud for their non-interested partners to hear as they watched a different programme in the other room of the house that this was going to go all the way to penalties. Some things in life are usually fairly evident. Of course nobody would have known what was to come.

The first half perhaps saw the hardest working man in the stadium, the linesman running down the Costa Rica flank, a man who may as well have kept his flag permanently erect for offside for each time Greece attacked, as though he would be contender for man of the match alongside Keylor Navas. Such was his involvement in the standing of the game that it wouldn’t have been a surprise to see him presented with a bottle of champagne at the end.

If the game had the feel of going all the way to penalties, then nobody told Costa Rica’s Bryan Ruiz. With the energetic Joel Campbell finding Bolanos free, he neatly slid the ball across the box to Ruiz who curled his shot home. Costa Rica had gone one nil up and how do they celebrate in the dug-out, by having the most bizarre yellow card shown to Costa Rica’s substitute goalkeeper Oscar Granados. Orestis Karnezis in the Greek goal musty shoulder all the blame after seeing what in essence was a scuffed shot gradually find its way into the net. The man had so much time that he could have easily finished writing an essay on the importance of Tom Clancy’s work in modern espionage and still found a way to twiddle his thumbs waiting for the results.

If a Tom Clancy script was designed to have many pitfalls for Jack Ryan to be placed in danger then Costa Rica were certainly in the mood to help Greece prosper. The stupidity of Oscar Duarte’s second yellow card for a challenge on Cholevas on 66 minutes really should have allowed Greece the space and freedom that had so far eluded them. Yet all it seemed to do was allow the game to descend into the type of niggling affair between two friends that had only seen them share an ice cream ten minutes before.

As the minutes counted down, the seemingly impossible was on the cards, Costa Roca were on the verge of reaching the last eight for the first ever time, something that only Mexico from the same region of Central America had managed before.

There is always a spanner in the works at any party, look around when you next host a big gathering, there is always one person sat in the corner of the room who looks as if they would rather be almost anywhere than there, they are not just bored, they are contemplating on the benefits of causing a row. The same for this match, Greece weren’t about to let someone stand in the way of their own piece of footballing history, they had never got as far as this before and they weren’t about to go home just yet. Five minutes of injury time is shown and then finally the extra man advantage paid off.

From the most unlikely of sources, Greece had their equaliser thanks to a stunning shot by Papastathopoulos. By scoring the debut goal for his country Sokratis Papastathopoulos seemed the most pleased man throughout history, not even his near notable namesake could have gained more pleasure. For all Costa Rica’s resolve, their surely would only be one winner now. 30 more minutes in the evening sunshine, players losing more vital strength as each minute ticked by, Greece at that point looked the likely winners. For all the possession, for all the bluster though, Greece couldn’t find the final ball in which to avoid taking the game to penalties, the second of the last 16 round so far to do so.

Unlike Brazil V Chile, it has to be said this was no classic, it wasn’t even a 1970s spin off with bad reception and Brian Moore giving his twopence worth back in the studio but it certainly had the sense of occasion firmly placed between the goal posts. The lottery of penalties, the strength of character to walk down the pitch and place a ball past a keeper from 12 yards, never the easiest of tasks and yet one by one player by player, Costa Rica converted all five of theirs, the second time in this tournament it could be argued that they have shown England how to play the game to its final conclusion.

If there is a man to feel sorry for then place your head alongside veteran Greek player Theo Gekas, a man with more time playing for his country than you would find choice cuts at Greek Taverna. His tired legs just about having the power to produce an attempt on goal in which normally you would expect a converted penalty but for whom Keylor Navas produced an equally stunning save. It was left to Michael Umana to give the Costa Rocan’s the prize of facing Holland in the last eight and didn’t they celebrate as if this result was all that mattered.

There is no way Costa Rica are going to beat Holland, one of the major powerhouses of European football, yet you just know when the two teams come out of the tunnel on Saturday, all but the hardened fan of all things orange, apart from those with a vested interest in seeing the Netherlands finally undo the curse of being the Best Man but never the Groom, will be cheering on the team from Central America. Nothing is certain it seems anymore in football; and that is the best news anybody could ask for.

Costa Rica: Keylor Navas, Oscar Duarte, Giancarlo Gonzalez, Michael Umana, Cristian Gamboa, Yeltsin Tejeda, Celso Borges, Junior Diaz, Bryan Ruiz, Christian Bolanos, Joel Campbell.

Substitutes: Jose Cubero, Johnny Acosta, Randall Brenes.

Greece: Orestis Karnezis, Vasileios Torosidis, Konstantinos  Manolas, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Jose Cholevas, Ioannis Maniatis, Andreas Samaris, Giorgios Karagounis, Dimitros Salpingidis, Lazaros Christodoulopoulos, Georgios Samaras.

Substitutes: Kostas Mitroglou, Theo Gekas, Kontstaninos Katsouranis

Venue: Arena Pernambuco, Recife

Referee: Benjamin Williams (Australia)

Goal Scorers: Costa Rica: Bryan Ruiz, Greece: Sokratis Papastathopoulos

Final Score: Costa Rica 1-1 Greece. Costa Rica win 5-3 on penalties.

Man of the Match: Keylor Navas (Costa Rica), Joel Campbell (Costa Rica) Shared.

Ian D. Hall