Poland, Costa Rica to Play Purely For Pride

Costa Rica's coach Alexandre Guimaraes and his Polish counterpart Pawel Janas know their teams are out of the World Cup, but on Tuesday they will wage a personal battle for survival.

Both sides have lost to Germany and Ecuador and Guimaraes and Janas know that only a win in their final Group A game here will be good enough if they are to have the slightest hopes of hanging onto their jobs.

"Of course I made mistakes"

Janas, who has seen his side lose 2-0 to Ecuador and 1-0 to Germany, wants to stay on and lead the Poles into Euro 2008 qualifying, which starts in September. But veteran trainer Henryk Kaspeczak has been reportedly lined up by the Polish federation to take over.

Polish media and fans have been calling for Janas' resignation ever since the defeats against Ecuador and Germany ended the eastern Europeans' hopes at the group stages for the second consecutive World Cup.

But Janas has remained defiant in the face of criticism.

"I regret nothing. I took my decisions and that's it. What I could do, I did," said Janas whose team had arrived here with hopes of at least making the second round before the surprise emergence of Ecuador.

Janas controversially left Liverpool goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek and forward Tomasz Frankowski out of the side, which went on to have a miserable and very brief World Cup.

"Of course I made mistakes. Only people who do nothing make no mistakes," Janas said. "What I could do, I did. Maybe someone could have done better but, sorry, I did it my way."

Tuesday's match against Costa Rica will see Poland battling to avoid slipping to the bottom of Group E -- a task made all the more difficult by the fact that the side have yet to score at this World Cup.

"We must motivate ourselves in the same way for the game with Costa Rica as we did for Germany, but we also have to add something more in terms of football," Polish striker Maciej Zurawski said. "If we don't score, we don't win. We've lost two games and we need to do more than just battle in this game."

"A difficult time for us"

Guimaraes also faces a battle to survive although, unlike the Poles, his team has managed to find the net with Paulo Wanchope scoring twice in the 4-2 defeat to Germany.

"I'm in charge of this team, and I make the decisions," said Guimaraes. "We'll come to our conclusions after the third match, but, undoubtedly, to concede seven goals in two games, when we work so hard on our defensive system in training, is just too much."

Guimaraes has added that Tuesday's game will also be avoiding ending up bottom of the group.

"We have played badly and not done ourselves justice, so we have the opportunity to do something better in this game," he said. "It will be hard for both sides because neither want to finish bottom of the group."

Wanchope has bemoaned the team's inability to make significant progress in Germany.

"We tried to capitalize on the chances that we had, but we couldn't," said the former West Ham and Manchester City striker.

"It's a difficult time for us, but life carries on."