Costa Rica provided English football fans with one of their fondest World Cup memories in 1990, by beating the hapless Scotland 1-0. They also qualified for the last tournament and they’re back again in Germany. Not only that, Costa Rica are taking part in the tournaments first game, against the host nation, today. And the team is being backed by the country’s national banana corporation - Corbana.
Each team will have its own strategy as the game kicks off in Munich at 6pm, and for the Costa Ricans, Corbana says there is one clear advantage: “they’ve got bananas”.
However, as 22 per cent of banana imports in Germany emanate from Costa the fear is that the Germans will match that strategy.
In 2005, bananas accounted for nearly a fifth of all exports from Costa Rica to Germany. Refusing to bet on the result of the match, Jorge Sauma Aguilar, ceo of Corbana, ventured: “No matter who wins, this match will show, above all, the real power of our bananas!”
The real battle of the bananas, however, comes in the second match, when the Ticos - as Costa Rica’s team is nicknamed - face Ecuador in Hamburg. “It could well be an exciting clash since all those players were brought up among bananas,” said Corbana.
And a third match in Hanover, against Poland, could see the real power of the banana shine through. “On that day, those young men renowned for being ‘hot-blooded’, brought up in the sunshine and full of the energy provided by the bananas of their country will face players from a country with a rather harsher climate,” said Corbana.
Aguilar added: “All Costa Rican banana producers and the whole of my team are, of course, the biggest supporters of our football team. We’re all convinced that, with all the nutritional content of the bananas which the players have been consuming since their early childhoods, they’re bound to win.”
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