Soccer at the centre of Costa Rican life

SAN JOSE, May 31: Costa Rica is often best known abroad for its exuberant national parks and for the fact that it abolished its army in 1948.

But a different aspect of Costa Rica often strikes the first-time visitor arriving in the small Central American nation.

Wherever you go at the weekends in Costa Rica, people are playing soccer. In school yards, in the streets, in city parks and in town squares virtually every open space is occupied by soccer games.

Costa Rica, with a population of just over four million have just qualified for their second successive World Cup and the third in their history - a better record than larger neighbours El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

Every small town, even the most remote hamlet, has a soccer pitch in front of the town church, usually in impeccable condition.

It is a stark contrast to the situation in many Latin American nations where pitches, if they have not been built over by unplanned urbansiation, are often in an advanced state of decay.

According to JosDe Manuel NuInez, a former congressman and a board member of the Uruguay de Coronado second division team, a former Costa Rican president, Ricardo JimDenez, who governed between 1910 and 1914, passed legislation to build towns with Catholic churches, soccer pitches and schools at the center of communities.

Several generations of Costa Ricans have grown up with soccer at the center of community life.

And most communities have amateur leagues where adults take in some weekend recreation.

The countrys social mood rises and falls with the luck of the national team.

Costa Ricans are avid fans as well as players. At least one soccer game from somewhere in the world can be found on local cable table channels at virtually any time of the day or night.

In the local first division league, the age of television has made the countrys two most dominant teams Deportiva Saprissa and Liga Alajuelense, the favorites of most Costa Ricans.

Reuters