Barahona explains Costa Rica's collapse after 3-0 lead: "The back five wasn't trained the way it should have been"

A 3-0 lead at halftime looked like a formality. Costa Rica had pressed, attacked and won nearly every individual battle against Curacao, and everything pointed to an easy rout at La Cueva. But soccer has a way of humbling you: 45 minutes later, that same game ended in a stunning 3-4 loss that left half the country wondering what happened during the break.

The answer starts with a decision by Fernando Batista. The coach shuffled the lineup, moving away from the back four that had worked so well and switching to a back five. The idea, in theory, was to protect the lead. In practice, it was the beginning of the collapse. Curacao found space, worked its way back into the match and ultimately pulled off a win that had seemed impossible at halftime.

Why did a change meant to safeguard the result go so wrong? That's where Carlos Barahona comes in. The starting right back opened up in the mixed zone about what had been happening behind closed doors within the squad.

The defender didn't mince words: the back five had barely been worked on in training before the match.

These past few days we trained, but not the way it should be done. I don't know about before, because I wasn't in the previous call-ups, but when it's time to play a back five, I don't know what to do, because what are you supposed to do if you haven't trained it?Carlos Barahona

"With a back four we were solid"

Barahona didn't stop there. He offered a blunt comparison between how it felt to play with four defenders and how everything changed the moment Batista made the switch.

With a back four I was winning every duel, but the back five had me running back toward my own goal and it was really toughCarlos Barahona

Still, the fullback was careful not to point the finger at the coach. For him, the problem wasn't the decision itself, but the fact that the team wasn't prepared to execute it.

No blame, these are just decisions. With a back five they caught us out of position, it's not the coach's fault. Those are the decisions and that's thatCarlos Barahona

Barahona even put himself in Batista's shoes to explain the logic behind the change: packing numbers into the back line to avoid risking a lead that, at that point, looked more than enough.

"It wasn't practiced because we had very few days, it wasn't practiced, but I feel like the coach wanted to fill up the back line, but it didn't turn out the way he expected. With a back four we were standing firm," he added.

Batista himself had already admitted after the match that his tactical moves didn't work out and that the responsibility for the result was his. But Barahona's account adds another layer that helps explain Curacao's comeback: it wasn't just that the plan failed in the moment, but that, according to one of the players who had to execute it on the field, the setup also hadn't gotten the training work it needed to hold up when it mattered most.