Costa Rica lose 3-4 to Curazao after leading 3-0: A second half without rhythm

In San José, the stands of Estadio Ricardo Saprissa were still singing when the first half ended. Three goals, none conceded. I sat in the press area, opened my second notebook — the one I use for the things that never appear on the scoreboard — and wrote a short line: "The gap between midfield and defence is widening." I never trust notes like that in the moment. But this time the feeling was unmistakable, and it did not ease after the break.

Forty-five minutes later, Curazao scored four. Costa Rica lost 3-4 at home after leading by three. Not every match has a crowd. But every match has someone keeping its rhythm — and that night, the home side's rhythm snapped cleanly right after the half-time whistle.

This was Costa Rica's opening fixture in the Concacaf Nations League. The opponent was Curazao, a national team from a Caribbean island with a population of under two hundred thousand. On paper, it was a match the hosts had to win, and win comfortably. It was also the first competitive fixture of a new cycle under head coach Fernando Batista.

Estadio Ricardo Saprissa is nicknamed "La Cueva" — the cave. For years, Costa Ricans have believed their national team does not lose there. Altitude, humidity, noise, the pitch itself. The things a Caribbean visitor usually cannot withstand in the second half.

Curazao arrived with a squad that is not small in human terms. Tahith Chong, developed in the Netherlands. Kenji Gorré, also from European football. Eloy Room, a goalkeeper with years of international caps. It is the familiar Caribbean model: a small nation that owns a diaspora network stretching across the Netherlands, Belgium and England. Their resource is not the domestic league. It is the second passport.

On the Costa Rican side, the squad still rests on familiar names: players from the domestic league, from MLS, and a few based in Europe. Carlos Mora, who plays for Universitatea Craiova in Romania, is one of them. Before kick-off, nobody questioned the result. The only question was how many Costa Rica would score, and who would score them.

The first half ran exactly to that script. Costa Rica pushed high from the opening minutes, pressed Curazao in their own half, and the visitors created almost nothing dangerous across the first forty-five minutes.

Orlando Sinclair opened the scoring. Carlos Mora struck twice to make it 3-0 before the break. Three goals in one half, at home, against a supposedly weaker opponent — everything was under control.

Then the second half began. And with it came a completely different Curazao.

The visitors pushed their defensive line higher, organised a far more aggressive press in the upper third, and the space Costa Rica had enjoyed in the first half simply vanished. In my notes, the phrase that repeats most is "loss of control" — not in the sense of the ball running loose, but in the sense that the hosts no longer knew which rhythm they were playing to.

Kenji Gorré pulled one back to make it 3-1. That was the opening.

Then Tahith Chong came on. The Netherlands-developed player changed the speed of the match entirely. Minutes after he entered, Curazao made it 3-2, with Chong himself scoring. From that moment the game belonged to the visitors, and nothing suggested Costa Rica would take it back.

Gorré completed his brace to level at 3-3. Then Jordi Paulina — arriving completely unmarked inside the penalty area — made it 3-4.

The word "unmarked" is the most important word in everything I recorded that night. The first three concessions can be argued tactically. The fourth cannot. A player standing free inside the box at the decisive moment of a match is not a formation problem. It is a concentration problem, an organisation problem, and above all a question of who was keeping the defensive rhythm.

And here is the detail I want to record most carefully: from 3-1 to 3-4, I registered no significant structural change from Costa Rica. No formation switch. No dropping the block deep to protect the lead. No visible adjustment made to arrest the opponent's momentum. A three-goal cushion was erased in less than a half, and the gaps between the conceded goals kept shortening.

In the stands, as the second half wore on, the "olé" chanting began. But it was aimed at the home side — the players in Costa Rica shirts. That is a sound I never want to hear in any stadium. The 2026 season taught me that silence can also be a form of support. An "olé" aimed at your own players is neither support nor silence. It is a statement.

After the final whistle, the crowd's frustration turned clearly toward Fernando Batista. Costa Rican media called it one of the worst moments in the country's recent football history.

And this is where I want to slow down, because most of what is being written about this match will quickly drift toward conclusions that the data cannot support.

I do not have the expected-goals figure for this match. I do not have pressing numbers. I do not have possession share. The original report I read names no data provider and no attributable source. That means every tactical explanation currently circulating about this collapse is speculation — including the ones that sound very reasonable.

We will hear two versions. Version one: Costa Rica lost their composure and their spirit, and it is the coach's fault. Version two: Curazao were simply too good, and this was an unavoidable shock.

Some things never appear on the scoreboard, yet they decide everything. In this case, the thing missing from the scoreboard is the data itself. And because it is missing, both versions above may be right or wrong, and we have no way to adjudicate.

Another line deserves careful handling: "Curazao maintained the level they showed at the World Cup." Curazao have never played at a World Cup finals. That phrasing may refer to qualifying form, or simply to exaggeration. It needs verification before it becomes the foundation of any analysis.

What I am most confident about, after weighing it all: Curazao won through a specific change — pushing the line higher and introducing Chong — not through a miracle. And Costa Rica lost because nobody answered that change. The truth sits between the two, and it is a truth about game management, not about national spirit or footballing identity.

Next Sunday, Costa Rica travel to Haiti in Kingston. The recovery window is very short. No fixture schedule allows a team to forget a match like this in time.

From Busan to the World Cup, I have learned that football does not lie. It only sometimes speaks more slowly than we want to hear. Costa Rica's rhythm was not lost in the second half against Curazao. It had already slowed before that, and the match merely made clear what anyone sitting long enough at training could already feel.

Every player has his own rhythm. The job of the one who keeps it is to find where it begins — and in San José, that place stood empty for the final forty-five minutes.