FIFA U-17 World Cup: From tamarind chutney to samosas, India offers tasty tales to Costa Ricans

FIFA U-17 World Cup: Yecsy is a success story of one of football’s most committed and penetrating scouting programmes in the world

“When I see a plane going by, I imagine myself going up there, someday I’ll travel to play somewhere else,” Yecsy Jarquin had told journalist Alonso Mata Blanco of La Nacion in Costa Rica, two years ago. Over the last weekend, the tiny right midfielder — called ‘The Very Small One’ by his team, had crossed halfway across the world from his home town of Moya with its dusty, hot, uneven ballast streets in Santa Cruz, Costa Rica, and reached Goa for his biggest meet — the u-17 World Cup.

It’s not so much a change of topographies — both Santa Cruz and Goa share vibrant colours, a love for dance and music and folklore, a love for mussels and tiny feet gorging on the free open spaces to play football. Yecsy is a success story of one of football’s most committed and penetrating scouting programmes in the world wherein a talent on the absolute margins was fished out by what in Costa Rica are called reviewers or training trainers. They are talent seekers and dribble detectives who work for the National League of Amateur Soccer (Linafa) and of the Costa Rican Federation of Soccer (Fedefut), and they go magic hunting in the remotest areas of this bio and geo-diverse nation that boasts of a dozen volcanoes and as many islands and forests.

Yecsy was scouted by one such Marco Martinez, a 50-year-old who would don a charro hat and carry a whistle tied to a rope according to a description of Mata Blanco, and watch football games at Santa Cruz High School in the province of Guanacasteco. Yecsy was the youngest of an impoverished family, and he had lost his father tragically. The province has terrible climate and throws up hardy boys who take to football to escape all the sufferings that nature and deprivation can throw at them. There were open beaches too, and its where Marco is said to have remarked to Mata Blanco: “See how he runs, moves … the way he gets the ball. Dribble, face, explode, score. It has mischief, that’s what it has.”

Some other players were picked from the other football hotbed Limon.

Costa Rica is a pleasant sort of anamoly of central America, perhaps an oddity in the whole world. It’s remained a stable democracy surrounded by unstable regimes. It did away with its army after a civil war and is almost exactly as old as India as a republic.

Very high on literacy, almost at 90 percent of perishing its carbon footprint and an egalitarian society with top free healthcare, it has steadfastly stayed a model for democracies. It also has the world’s largest number of species — and it wasn’t entirely surprising when the team’s support staff commented on what should be the ideal conditions in India to rear pics and cattle.

They were also mildly scandalised by the number of two wheeler riders in Goa without helmets. They take immense pride in having mined out a talent like Yecsy and giving him the platform with The Ticos (that’s their nickname) — just when football is going places in Costa Rica. First came the 2014 senior World Cup where the Costa Ricans topped their group which had Italy, Uruguay and England. There’s been steady progress in the age group results, though the hot property currently is goalkeeper Keylor Navas who’s been in top flight football with Real Madrid — inspiring all the Tiny Ticos.

“Ricardo Montenegro (GK), Walter Cortes, Christian Munoz, Amferny Arias, Fernan Faerron, Yecsy — are all good players, and we’ve put in a lot of preparation together for 3 years,” said Marcello Herrera, the Costa Rican sports director.

The u-17 team prepared for India by playing at a tournament in Malaga, Spain — with similar weather conditions to India. “That was a good workout, and though we have very good teams — Germany and Iran and Guinea — we hope to surprise everyone,” he added.

The Costa Ricans — who have some of the best rodeos back home — are keen on learning more about India’s culture. “The toughest thing perhaps for these boys was to leave school mid-term and come here. But this is the World Cup,” Herrara added, of a country that lays extra-ordinary emphasis on education.

While Yecsy is the poster child of deep scouting, the other surprise tale is of his fellow AD Municipal Liberia team-mate Mario Mora — who underwent an appendicitis operation in April, and was on the training pitch within weeks. Perhaps the happiest traveller to India from the Costa Rican group is their masseuse Rodriguo Peros.

The man wears a scarf around his neck and greets you with “Hare Krishna.”

His fascination with India started with – how every respectable conversion should start. Food.

“I love samosas with tamarind chutney. samosa, barfi, gulab jamun, he rattles off names, before proceeding to the mundane, academic details of his Indophile journey. “I started loving vegetarian food because of a friend Govinda and would make prasadam in his restaurant. Because I loved Indian food, I started loving the philosophy and started going to one of the many ISKON temples in Costa Rica. Hence, I love everything about India — though tamarind chutney is my first love.” From Yecsy to this samosa-lover, India will offer many tasty tales to the Costa Ricans.