Costa Rica living the dream as they prepare for England’s final scene

The final movement in England’s slow motion Group D car crash was always meant to end up looking more like a sprint finish to the knockout stages. Instead, following the decisive defeats in Manaus and São Paulo, England have become little more than extras in one of the great World Cup stories of recent tournaments, a chance for Costa Rica to top the – always a little unconvincingly named – Group Of Champions and progress to the last 16 for only the second time.

In December, Los Ticos’ Colombian manager Jorge Luis Pinto was caught laughing on national television when England were drawn as the third and final former world champion to join his team at Brazil 2014. Who’s laughing now? Well, still him actually.

As England prepare for their own last knockings in Belo Horizonte – watched by a faithful horde of pre-booked supporters and, for reasons that remain unclear, Prince Harry – the contrast with the Costa Rica squad’s buoyancy could not be more stark. This is a wonderful, hard-earned moment of sporting grace for a nation of 4.6 million people, and also for Pinto himself (nickname: El Explosivo), who is aged 61 in his 19th managerial job on a revolving carousel of South American clubs and national teams.

At a World Cup shaded at the edges with intriguing characters, perhaps the most interesting thing about Pinto as far as England are concerned is his status, from a certain angle, as a kind of Colombian Roy Hodgson. Like England’s manager he never played professional football but entered via academia and a willingness to travel and learn. And here he was able to offer a quietly illuminating take on England’s own plight, as glimpsed through the prism of a team that has looked energised and tactically state of the art where England have struggled.

“The mother of football cannot leave without any points and that makes things very complex,” Pinto said. “England must take some pride from Brazil they can’t just leave with crossed arms, and so we think this is going to be a very one-on-one match. I’m not lowering the guard at all.

“Costa Rica is a very organised country. The federation is very good at doing things. When we started on September 8th with pre-season we were doing research preparation, fat indices, aerobic research, mental research. They have been working since December, not for a month or 20 days, and that has given us a lot of quality.”

No doubt this was not intended as a dig at England’s own mob-handed farrago, those three weeks of psychology and humidity training and tailored mineral drinks intended to provide a winning gloss on an ingrained ancestral neglect of skills and tactics.

But stories of a united association and league do point rather wearily to the basic obstacle in England’s own path, that 130-year old separation of ownership and control, with first the Football League and now the Premier League edging the England team’s concerns to the fringes.

For Costa Rica the opportunity to play England with – as the New York Red Bulls midfielder Roy Miller pointed out here – “who we play in the last 16” the sole concern, is a hard-earned reward for a football-crazed nation that travelled here with nine players from their own venerable 12-team domestic top tier, and only Joel Campbell, Arsenal-by-proxy, and Fulham’s Bryan Ruiz contracted in a major European league.

“In Costa Rica everyone loves football, young, old, all races,” Pinto said. “Maybe we don’t have the same connotations as Brazilian, German and English football the hooligans and everything, but we live for football.”

To date Costa Rica’s victories over Italy and Uruguay have been based around a diligent, muscular defence and a fast-breaking, penetrative attack led by Ruiz and Campbell. For Pinto it is a style honed through his love of Brazilian football, a nation where he once was a student, and in particular an academic interest in Italy’s characteristic defensive stitching. Perhaps with this in mind there is a sense of respect from Pinto for England’s own attacking strengths. “It seems England have a versatile team which attacks. As is normal with English football there are three or four unbalancing players. We must not lose [individual duels] against [Raheem] Sterling and [Danny] Welbeck. It seems to me they were taken by surprise by the opposition goals, and I also think they have been unlucky. They came to the box very many times against Italy but didn’t have the opportunity to score.

“I think England is the favourite for many reasons. They have influential players, a lot of history, a jersey and many other things. We are here in a fight. We want to face England with everything we have, doing things right on the pitch, playing great football, everything organised tactically. If they want to win they can, but let’s see what happens.”

If there has been a blot on Brazil 2014 for Los Ticos it came in sense of grievance over Fifa’s decision to dope test seven Costa Rica players after the defeat of Italy, something Pinto said made him feel “uncomfortable”.

“It was not done tactfully, and public opinion ended up thinking ‘what are they afraid of?’” Fifa must be precise and accurate. I’d like to see Brazil have eight players tested and the attitude is balanced.

“Many people from the media thought they were doing this because they saw the way the players run. But our footballers are crystalline and pure.”

By Barney Ronay

Barney Ronay is senior sports writer for guardian.co.uk. He also writes a column on sport for the Saturday Guardian