Speaking of snow - and soccer - and Costa Rica

TTP has spent a lot of time in Costa Rica doing research and teaching, and every now and then just being a gringo tourista.  Snow days here in the upper midwest are no big deal really.  But some things, just like dogs and cats together, are just unnatural.  So when TPP saw this soccer game the other day, it was just plain wrong, a crime against nature.  Soccer is one of those games that is played under diverse field conditions, but this was not right.  Cold, OK. Some flurries in the air, OK. But when the ball can't roll because of snow accumulation, this just isn't right.  You can't play the game the way it was meant to be played.  And then there's the whole Costa Rican thing.  They love soccer way more than the USA loves soccer.  It's their love and their pride at stake.  So you take the Costa Rican national team and you ask them to play soccer in a form of precipitation that they have never, ever seen before, a form of precipitation that most Costa Ricans can't even imagine, and it's just plain wrong.  Most of them probably cannot believe even still that they were playing soccer under such conditions, and then to lose late, by one goal; outrageous!  Never has the weather conditions been so stacked against one team before.  Their protest is most appropriate, and hopefully it will be upheld.