Former Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake defender Douglas Sequeira has officially played a grand total of one minute in Costa Rica's 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign. But it may have been the most painful 60 seconds in Costa Rica soccer history. Back in the days when Mexico was the only country from CONCACAF to make the World Cup Finals, Tavares sang, "It only takes a minute girl, to fall in love." As Sequeira and Co. discovered in Washington, D.C. last month, it only takes a crazy minute to fall out of an automatic World Cup berth.
With the Ticos holding a 2-1 lead against the U.S. at RFK Stadium on Oct. 14, and with the game deep into stoppage time, Sequeira subbed in for Dennis Marshall. At that moment, Costa Rica held third place in the CONCACAF hexagonal and a ticket to next summer's big show. But moments after Sequeria joined the fray, a Jonathan Bornstein goal tied the game for the U.S., sending Honduras to South Africa and a distraught Ticos team into the upcoming playoff with Uruguay.
In 2005, the year before Bornstein was drafted by Chivas USA, Sequeira scored two goals in 25 games for the Red-and-White. That year he also had a painful World Cup qualifying stoppage time encounter with the U.S., although this time he was the one handing out the hurt, Steve Cherundolo's stomach being on the receiving end of Sequeira's wildly lunging knee in the 92nd minute of the USA's 3-0 win. Sequeira was promptly issued a red card, and a subsequent FIFA review of the incident would see the defender banned for three games. But that didn't stop Sequeira from playing in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals.
He started in two of the Ticos three games in Germany and is hoping he will get the chance to do the same next year in South Africa. That seemed a remote possibility for most of 2009, with the much-traveled Sequeira playing in Norway for Tromso and seemingly off the radar of then Costa Rica head coach Rodrigo Kenton. But in August, Sequeira moved back home to join Saprissa, and when René Simoes replaced Kenton at the Ticos helm in September he recalled Sequeira and other veterans, such as Luis Marin, to the national team. Sequeira was on the bench for the 4-0 drubbing of Trinidad and Tobago on Oct. 10, and, as already noted, made a cameo against the U.S. that undoubtedly left a big impression on him.
Now, he hopes for a chance to make a bigger and better impression. Simoes named Sequeira to his squad for the two-leg playoff series against Uruguay and will most likely use him off the bench. Four years ago, Trinidad and Tobago won a playoff with Bahrain to give CONCACAF four teams at the World Cup Finals for the first time ever. With all due respect to Bahrain, a playoff victory over a South American power like Uruguay would be a massive boost to CONCACAF credibility and give the region four teams at the finals again.
But perhaps most importantly of all, this Saturday and next Wednesday, Costa Rica has a minimum of 180 minutes to reduce that D.C. heartbreaker from the agony of a lifetime into a fleeting minute that Sequeira and the Ticos can happily banish to the footnote section of their World Cup history.
Mark C. Young is an Emmy Award-winning freelance writer/TV producer who has covered several FIFA World Cups and Olympic Games. He is a contributor to Goal.com and also writes for the blog "No Mas."
