You can imagine the online editors at Costa Rican sports portal Al Dia frantically trying to splash increasingly bigger headlines across their website as each accusation was hurled.
First, Jorge Luis Pinto said he was leaving, which again, was not totally unexpected given how people generally like to go out on a high note. But things quickly careened from the script. Pinto lashed out, alleging that one of his Costa Rican coaching assistants tried to get him fired a year and a half ago. He said he’d been “sleeping with the enemy,” persevering only because he wanted to qualify for the World Cup. His final straw with Costa Rica was that the federation prohibiting him from bringing in an all-Colombian coaching staff.
The responses was fast and furious. Costa Rican federation president Eduardo Li said he and his colleagues had been “betrayed” by Pinto, and that the Colombian manager broke a gentlemen’s agreement by speaking publicly about the backroom discord. Then star midfielder Bryan Ruiz piped up on his own website with a statement saying that the relationship between the players and Pinto had “worn out” off the pitch and that the manager’s desire to “control everything” had caused rifts in the dressing room. Fulham's Bryan Olviedo (who didn't play in the tournament on account of injury) also went on the record and said there had been longstanding problems between Pinto and the players.
But perhaps most bizarre accusations belong to goalkeeping coach Gabelo Conejo. He alleges Pinto confronted Keylor Navas about faking an injury so the keeper could avoid training prior to the match against England. He detailed another, weirder dust-up, in which Navas challenged the manager in front of the other players, saying Pinto was coming to his hotel room at night to check on him.
This is the kind of stuff players say after a three-game flameout that ends with teammates punching each other on the field, not after a history-making run that cements everyone involved into soccer lore.
All in all it was an incredible, unparalleled disintegration that won’t get a lot of attention outside Costa Rica. As far as epic manager-team boss break breakups go perhaps The Guardian got it wrong, maybe they should have anointed Jose Mourinho as the South American Jorge Luis Pinto.
Where does this leaves Costa Rica? It might be harder to attract a foreign manager in the future, but that’s only if we assume memories are long, which they often aren’t in international soccer. The bigger concern is likely this September’s U.S.-based Copa Centroamerica. Instead of riding in high on a wave of World Cup glory, the Costa Ricans will employ a young squad with an interim manager and coaching staff out to prove that all that on-field success in the World Cup wasn’t down solely to Pinto and his supposedly heavy-handed approach to training and discipline.
In the broader sense, it's a fascinating case study in the player-manager relationship. We often hear about managers "losing the dressing room," and how players just sort of give up, causing the on-field results to turn even worse. Apparently many of the Costa Rican players thought Pinto was sort of a jerk. But that didn't stop them from shelving personal feelings and buying into the system this jerk was preaching.