Costa Rica is fielding a U-23 team + home players. But they had no choice, cause Japan was forced to withdraw on last minutes cause of the schedule of the J-League is in a mess cause of the earthquake. And European teams didn't allow players to go.
Edit: I agree, they should have invited teams willing to play with full force. Or don't invite extra teams at all.
Both Mexico and CR are obligated by Concacaf to bring their U-22 teams + 5 older players. In our case we didn't called up the 5 older players cause they play abroad, and they only loaned them for the Gold Cup (eitherway I think one of those wouldn't have made it cause he died last week
). Had to make negotiations with AZ to loan us our kepper for the Copa America...guy supposly beat up his GF, she filed a lawsuit, he quit the NT and went back to Holland. I'm sure both CR and Mexico would've taken their best teams otherwise (our senior team is basically a u-23 with + 3 or 4 older players anyway, we were the youngest team in the Gold Cup and that's part of the reason of the debacle against Mexico, that and stupid high line against fast players).
Basically we're hoping to not get over 10 goals scored against, with no kepper with experience + kids all over the place and little time for trainning + all the things happening outside the group...really not hoping for anything less. That said and I hope he starts: Joel Campbell is a
in the making, maybe in Copa America against older rivals will be harder, and with an inexperienced team surrounding him, but he'll prove it in the U-20 tournament.
PS-I know we don't bring the viewership Japan could (which is the reason they got invited), but please keep the Copa America as a Copa
America. In fact stupid Concacaf should try to negotiate to make it a one tournament for the whole continent, make the Conmebol teams qualify, give 2 spots for USA and Mexico and make the rest of the Concacaf teams fight for 4 spots, play the first 2 tournaments in USA, make it the most sucessful in terms of income tournament out there, stadiums are already built and made for massive tournamens, stadiums will be sold out-as seen in the Gold Cup-, sponsors will cream their pants for it, play it exactly as soon as the Eurocup finishes to avoid big european teams keeping their stars (like in 2007 with Brazil). For Confed Cup reasons, the best placed team of each confederation will qualify for the Confederation Cup.