Paulo César Wanchope, the striker who spent a decade in English football before becoming one of Costa Rica’s best-known coaches, is expected to take charge of Club Sport Herediano for the third time in his career. It was reported today that an agreement with the 50-year-old would be closed within hours. Herediano had not announced the appointment by midday, and the club has made no public statement naming its choice.
The job came open on August 10, when Herediano dismissed José Giacone following a 0-3 home defeat to Alajuelense at the Estadio Carlos Alvarado in Santa Bárbara. Club president Jafet Soto then took the team himself on an interim basis, seven months after saying in a January radio interview that he would never put himself in the dugout again.
That spell lasted two matches. Herediano lost to San Carlos in Ciudad Quesada on August 14, and Soto said afterward that he would not continue, explaining that the club lacked a structure experienced enough to handle the situation and that he wanted to protect the staff who had stepped in alongside him. He said Herediano needed a permanent coach in place by the time the squad returned from Nicaragua.
The team beat Real Estelà 2-0 away on Tuesday in the Copa Centroamericana, keeping alive its chances of reaching the second phase. Soto said the announcement would come Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, but declined to name the man chosen. Other candidates circulating in the days beforehand included Jeaustin Campos and Paraguayan coach José Saturnino Cardozo.
Wanchope knows the club as well as anyone. He made his name in Costa Rican football at Herediano as a player, and it was there that he began coaching, taking charge for 30 matches between 2008 and 2009. He returned in September 2018, leaving Cartaginés to take the job, and lasted roughly a month.
He has been without a club since August 2025, when Saprissa dismissed him after an uneven start to the season in the domestic league and the Copa Centroamericana. His record across 22 matches there was 12 wins, five draws and five defeats. There is a symmetry to the move that will not be lost on anyone following the Costa Rican league. At Saprissa, Wanchope took over the job Giacone had left. If Herediano confirms him, he will be succeeding Giacone for the second time in two years.
Outside Costa Rica, Wanchope remains best known for his playing career in England. He scored on his Derby County debut at Old Trafford in 1997 and went on to play for West Ham United, Manchester City and Málaga, and he appeared for Costa Rica at the 2002 and 2006 World Cups.
His coaching career has been more uneven. He served as an assistant to Jorge Luis Pinto during Costa Rica’s run to the quarterfinals at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, then took over the national team and won a regional title before his tenure ended in the aftermath of an incident at a match in Panama. Since then he has managed Uruguay de Coronado, Pérez Zeledón, Cartaginés and Saprissa.
The appointment would also come with an awkward footnote. In February 2023, Soto publicly questioned Wanchope’s record in the dugout, rating his coaching career to that point as somewhere between mediocre and poor and suggesting he could not withstand another failure. Soto has since said the two remained friends.
Herediano are the reigning national champions and would be chasing a second consecutive title, but the Apertura 2026 has gone badly enough to cost one coach his job already and pull the club president into the dugout twice in a fortnight.
Until Herediano posts a statement, the appointment remains unconfirmed.
