The Costa Rican national team’s new head coach is someone very familiar toTicos fans.
Costa Rican soccer legend Oscar Ramirez was introduced Tuesday to replace former head coach Paulo Wanchope, who resigned last week after getting into a fight with a fan at an Olympic qualifying match in Panama City, Panama.
Ramirez, 50, made his name with both club and country, earning 75 caps and playing in the 1990 World Cup in Italy for the national team and starring for two of the Costa Rica’s most important clubs, Alajuelense and Saprissa, in the 1980s and ‘90s.
He takes over as the national team boss after coaching Alajuelense since 2010.
He follows the brief, up-and-down tenure of Wanchope, who played in MLS for the Chicago Fire in 2007. He led Costa Rica to a Copa Centroamericana championship in September 2014 after taking over for former head coach Jorge Luis Pinto, who resigned after the World Cup that summer, but his team crashed out of the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup tournament in the quarterfinals earlier this summer.
