| EFE |
 |
| Guimaraes |
 |
|
|
Costa Rican national soccer team coach Alexandre Guimaraes wants to take things up a notch in the team's Saturday quarterfinals elimination encounter with Honduras in Foxboro, Massachusetts.
"I expect an improvement (in our play), particularly in the dynamics and intensity. We've done well, but we have to improve the final stitch: the final pass in our rivals' area. Against Honduras, we're hoping to get more goals," the Brazilian-born - though a naturalized Costa Rican - Guimaraes said.
He said that the team will mount an intelligent attack on Honduras starting at 1700 GMT on Saturday in what's being billed as the "Central American classic." The Costa Ricans are intent on besting their rival and moving into the Gold Cup semifinal round for the second consecutive year.
In the first round, Costa Rica rotated its players so much that only its third-string goalie, Donny Grant, didn't take the field. In their three encounters, the team defeated Canada 1-0 and Cuba 3-1 and even held scoreless in a 0-0 tie the powerful U.S. squad, which is a two-time Gold Cup winner and the top-ranked team so far this year.
Two players are in doubt for the clash with Honduras. Midfielders Jose Luis Lopez and Danny Fonseca are suffering from blows dealt them in the first round, but neither seem to be plagued with anything really serious.
The upcoming match has taken on a tone of revenge in the Honduran press, since Costa Rica eliminated the team in the Soccer Confederation qualifying round for the 2006 World Cup, to be played in Germany.
Also, a couple of weeks ago in Tegucigalpa, the Costa Rican Under-17 squad knocked its Honduran counterparts off the list of competitors in the corresponding world tourney to be played this year in Peru.
In Gold Cup play, the Hondurans and Costa Ricans have only faced off once before, and Honduras emerged from that 1991 semifinals encounter with a 2-0 victory.
|
