Costa Rica Rides Skip and a Hop to Athens

Costa Rica took advantage of a nightmarish error by Honduras goalkeeper Donis Escobar on Tuesday night and turned it into a ticket to the Olympics.

Twenty-one minutes into the teams’ CONCACAF region qualifying semifinal match in Estadio Jalisco, Escobar somehow let a long-range shot by midfielder Jose Luis Lopez slip past him and into the net.

The shot, from about 33 yards, seemed routine. Escobar had it covered. But the ball skipped on the turf as he bent to scoop it up, and then slipped through between his legs, much to Escobar’s horror and Lopez’s delight.

Moments before, Costa Rica’s purportedly most dangerous forward, Winston Parks, had made a glaring error. Left momentarily free just inside the Honduran penalty area, he scuffed his quickly taken shot wide left.

Those were the only real scoring opportunities Costa Rica had in the first half of a 2-0 victory, because it was Honduras, which qualified for the Sydney Games in 2000 along with the United States, that applied most of the offensive pressure.

The closest Honduras, the defending CONCACAF under-23 champion, came to scoring, however, was when Emil Martinez clanged a header off the left post in the third minute.

Goalkeeper Adrian De Lemos also thwarted a fierce, angled shot by Honduras’ Mauricio Castro late in the half when he dived low to his right to snare the ball.

The second half began with another error by Parks, who intercepted an ill-conceived back pass by a Honduran defender and, with the goal gaping wide, kicked the ball into the stands.

A goal then might have secured the trip to Athens for Costa Rica, which last qualified for the Olympics in 1984. Instead, Costa Rica had to endure another half an hour or so of stress as the Hondurans tried desperately to tie the score.

Standing in their way, however, was De Lemos, who twice in the second half came up with superb fingertip saves.

First, he tipped a goal-bound line drive by Maynor Figueroa over the crossbar, then repeated the feat on a sharp header by Martinez. Escobar was back in form, too, flinging himself to his right to deny Carlos Hernandez.

There was no denying Alvaro Sabrorio, however.

In the 78th minute, Sabrorio, who had replaced Parks 15 minutes earlier, hammered a volley into the lower left corner of Escobar’s net and Costa Rica’s place in the Olympics was finally secure.