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Costa Rica show more improvement than South Africa

Costa Rica and South Africa have played each other only once before, but the 12 years that have passed since then have been more productive for the central American nation than for Bafana Bafana.

The Selection, as the Costa Ricans are known in football circles, are 31 places above SA in the latest rankings and with the bulk of the squad that reached the last eight of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil still in place, they are a skilled and experienced team.

The central Americans are among the top seeds in the Concacaf zone for a place in the World Cup in Russia and have been allowed to skip the preliminaries in the central and north American and Caribbean region before making their qualifying bow next month.

A symbol of their status is the quality of opponent they have managed to secure in recent warm-up friendlies.

Last month they lost 1-0 to Brazil in a friendly but then beat Uruguay 1-0, with Luis Suarez in the team. Bryan Ruiz, formerly of Fulham and now with Sporting Lisbon, scored the winner and is expected to lead the attack against South Africa.

After taking on Bafana today, they will head off to New York to face the US in a friendly on Tuesday.

SA beat Costa Rica 2-1 at Olen Park in Potchefstroom on October 11 2003 in their previous meeting.

Current Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba was also the coach then.