So much for home-field advantage. Saturday night, Mexico routed Costa Rica 3-0 on the Ticos home turf at Ricardo Saprissa Stadium in Tibás, north of San José. With the result, Costa Rica falls from first place to a tie for third in the six-team CONCACAF 2010 World Cup qualifying group.

Costa Rica was unbeaten in three previous World Cup qualifying matches at Saprissa.

Mexico, the long-time power in the CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) region, has won three consecutive World Cup qualifying matches to move into a tie with Costa Rica in third place, only one point behind group leaders Honduras and the United States. In their first four games in qualifying competition, Mexico lost three of four and was close to the bottom of the six-team group. With only three games left in the 2010 World Cup qualifying round, Mexico appears to be heating up at the right time.

On Saturday night, over 20,000 fans jammed into Saprissa Stadium to support La Sele (short for Selección ), the nickname for the Costa Rican national team. The seats at the stadium, which are purple, were filled with raucous, chanting fans wearing the red of the Costa Rican team. Though there were a few pockets of fans wearing the green of Mexico, it appeared that the boisterous pro-Tico crowd would boost the home team.

For the first 45 minutes of the game, it seemed to be working. There was little difference between the teams in the first half, as neither side established significant stretches of possession or mustered any serious threats on goal. Most of the first half was marred by fouls and yellow cards, as the referee from Trinidad and Tobago showed little restraint with the whistle and seemed determine to impose discipline on the teams, handing out five yellow cards in the first 43 minutes of play.

As the teams seemed destined to go into halftime scoreless, Mexico created their first significant opportunity of the game. Thanks to the lethal left foot of forward Giovani Dos Santos, they converted it.

In the waning moments of the first half, veteran Mexican forward Cuauhtémoc Blanco sent a pass from the sideline across the field. The long pass found 20-year-old striker Dos Santos, who was wide open on the back side of the defense. Dos Santos took a touch forward and, from about 22 yards out, unleashed a low, driven left-footed shot that beat goalkeeper Keilor Navas on the far post. The goal silenced the crowd at Saprissa and the Ticos entered the locker room in a 1-0 hole at halftime.

Early in the second half, Costa Rica pushed more players into the attack in an attempt to generate the equalizer. In doing so, they left their defense thin and susceptible to a counter attack. Mexico saw the opportunity and capitalized, twice.

In the 62nd minute, Costa Rica held possession near the Mexican goal but when a crossing attempt was cleared, Mexican forward Efraín Juárez claimed the loose ball and charged forward, carrying the ball deep into the Costa Rican defensive area. As two defenders closed on Juárez, he sent a pass across the field to an open Dos Santos at the top of the penalty area. Dos Santos took a touch towards the goal and, when Costa Rica goalkeeper Navas rushed out to close the angle on a potential shot, Dos Santos sent a lateral pass across the box to a wide open Guillermo Franco, who tapped the ball into the open net for a 2-0 lead.

Eight minutes later, Mexico struck again in almost identical fashion. In the 70th minute, after a Costa Rican corner kick, the ball was cleared to Mexican midfielder Andres Guardado. Guardado rushed at the Costa Rican defense, which had only two players back. As the defenders stepped up to close Guardado, he sent a pass through to Dos Santos, who was again in a one-on-one situation with Navas. As Navas stepped from his line to prepare for a shot, Dos Santos sent a lateral pass across the penalty area to a wide-open Guardado, who slotted the ball into the open net for a 3-0 lead.

After the third goal, deflated fans began exiting Saprissa as the chants from the Mexican faithful grew louder during the final 20 minutes of the game. 

“Obviously, when you lose like this on your home field, it bothers all of us,” said Costa Rica coach Rodrigo Kenton. “It is obvious we have a lot to work on. The players, the coaches, everyone. We are all responsible for what has happened the last two games.”

Costa Rica, which lost to Honduras 4-0 on Aug. 12, has been outscored 7-0 in their last two matches.

On Saturday night, the other four teams in the CONCACAF group were in action, with the United States beating El Salvador 2-1 and Honduras beating Trinidad and Tobago 4-1. With the wins, Honduras and the U.S. move into a tie for first place with 13 points.

The top three teams in the CONCACAF region qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The fourth place team will play a two-game, home-and-home playoff with the fifth place team from the South America CONMEBOL qualifying group.

Latin American countries have begun to show signs of recovery amid the global economic crisis, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Citing Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru among the countries whose prospects are looking up, ECLAC economic affairs officer Jürgen Weller told the newswire DPA, “All these countries show signs that they have overcome the crisis or are about to do so.” However, he added, the recovery will be sluggish.

In Costa Rica, finance officials also have signaled that the worst of the crisis may be over.

“While still in recession, the rate of (Costa Rica's) economic contraction has begun to slow,” Central Bank analyst Elvia Campos told The Tico Times. For a recovery to begin, she said, the manufacturing sector, agriculture and commerce all must show positive growth, a turnaround the Central Bank expects to see within the second half of 2010, Campos said.

The Central Bank predicts Costa Rica's gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 2.6 percent in 2010 – not far below ECLAC's outlook of 3 percent growth for the whole region.

Economic analysts have been picking apart the data to look for any semblance of a rebound.

“The ‘green shoots' that have emerged in the United States seem to have had a positive impact on our exports,” said Luis Mesalles, president of economic think tank Academia de Centroamérica. Green shoots – a term used to refer to signs of recovery during an economic crisis – have sprouted in some of the world's biggest economies, including France, Germany and Japan, all of which last week reported growth in the second quarter, according to international news outlets. The Associated Press reported that gains in U.S. worker productivity came in the spring as a result of companies' cutting costs and capping employees' wages.

However, analysts at the San José-based financial consulting firm Aldesa think the signs of a turnaround in Costa Rica aren't tenable and believe it's overly optimistic to be cheering on recovery's arrival.

“We think it is too soon to conclude that the turnaround is sustainable,” said Eric Vargas, Aldesa's manager of investment strategy. Vargas said Costa Rica has drained its liquidity to the point that it will be “a drag on the recovery, which in our opinion will lose strength in the coming quarters.”

Start purring, Broadway lovers: “Cats,” the iconic musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, is coming to Costa Rica in December.

Twenty-one of the original “Cats” cast will perform in the Costa Rican debut of the beloved musical, bringing with them 60 costumes, 25,000 prop items and a 38-member crew, the daily La Nación reported. The visit is part of a Central and South American tour that will also include Colombia, Venezuela and Panama.

Five performances will be offered Dec. 16 to 20 at the Palacio de los Deportes in Heredia, north of San José. Ticket prices and points of sale are expected to be announced in mid-October.

Based on T.S. Eliot's “Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats” – Webber set Eliot's verses to music – the show ran on Broadway for 18 years and in London for 21, setting long-run records in both cases. The musical's most famous song is the now standard “Memory.”

President Oscar Arias turned heads with his role in the Honduran mediation process, and now he'll be turning on TVs.

Because of his work in conflict mitigation in the region and his accomplishments in diplomacy, he will be featured on The Biography Channel in a program set to air Sept. 13, his 68th birthday.

According to the daily La Nación, Arias will be the first Central American and second standing president – the first was U.S. President Barack Obama – to be profiled by The Biography Channel.

The 90-minute program will chronicle his early years growing up in a prominent coffee-growing family and will extend through his academic life, including the influence authors such as Winston Churchill had on his career. The program also highlights his role in the peace talks of the 1980s, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

It was Arias' role as peacemaker that caught the producers' attention. His political philosophy “not only allows him to govern a small nation without an army and a long democratic tradition, but also gives necessary credibility with its Central American counterparts to practice the difficult role of conflict mediation,” read a release from The Biography Channel.

Arias' ex-wife Margarita Penón and daughter Sylvia Arias collaborated in the production, along with his brother and Presidency Minister Rodrigo Arias, Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno and political analysts Constantino Urcuyo and Eduardo Ulibarri.

The program will air Sept. 13 at 8 p.m.