Costa Rica has named former captain Bryan Ruiz head coach of its men’s national team, giving the permanent job to the man who led La Sele on an interim basis this month and tasking him with taking our team back to the World Cup in 2030. The Costa Rican Football Federation (FCRF) announced the appointment today after its Executive Committee met and contract terms were finalized.
The federation said the decision gives continuity to the work Ruiz began in his two matches as interim coach and is intended to consolidate a new stage for the national team. Ruiz, 41, took charge on Sept. 28 after the federation fired Argentine coach Fernando Batista following a run of poor results. In his first match on the bench, Costa Rica beat Nicaragua 3-0, and days later it beat Haiti 2-0 at Estadio Ricardo Saprissa.
Those two wins, with five goals scored and none conceded, kept Costa Rica in League A of the CONCACAF Nations League, the objective the federation had set for the interim period. His record as a coach remains thin. Before October, Ruiz worked as an assistant and in the youth divisions at Liga Deportiva Alajuelense, and he had led the club’s first team in only two games on an emergency basis. The national team is his first permanent post in charge of a senior side.
He will be assisted by former Costa Rica internationals WÃlmer López and Christian Bolaños, with Wardy Alfaro also joining the coaching staff, according to the federation. López and Bolaños both represented Costa Rica at World Cups as players. In its statement, the federation said Ruiz was for years one of the leading figures of the national team and wore the captain’s armband with pride. It added that he will now bring that experience, leadership and knowledge of both the domestic and international game to the bench.
As a player, Ruiz was a left-footed attacking midfielder who captained Costa Rica at three consecutive World Cups, in Brazil 2014, Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022. He was the central figure of the 2014 side that reached the quarterfinals, the best finish in Costa Rica’s history.
His club career took him to Twente and PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Fulham in England, Sporting in Portugal and Santos in Brazil before he returned to Alajuelense and retired in 2022. Ruiz inherits a program that is still rebuilding. Costa Rica missed the 2026 World Cup under Mexican coach Miguel Herrera, Batista’s tenure ended after a string of Nations League setbacks, and the team has since slipped in the FIFA ranking.
For the October window, Ruiz had already brought veteran goalkeeper Keylor Navas back into his first squad. His first matches as permanent coach come during the November international window, with away friendlies against Ecuador on Nov. 13 and Argentina on Nov. 17. Those two games will offer the first measure of whether a coach with four matches of senior experience can turn a strong start and deep public goodwill into a team capable of returning Costa Rica to the World Cup.
