IT is history, as always, written by the victors.
Twenty-four years after its ultimate World Cup humiliation, Scotland's Italy 1990 exploits have been immortalised on the silver screen by a Costa Rican director.
Miguel Gómez, best known in the English-speaking world for his work on Hollywood blockbuster Iron Man, will tomorrow unveil his latest feature film: Italia 90: The Movie.
It may not make easy watching for the Tartan Army - even it makes a cameo appearance though footage of bekilted Scotland fans waving saltires in the streets of Genoa.
"I think the picture is going to be a boom," said Claudio Jara, the striker who created the single goal that gave the 1000-1 outsiders their win over Scotland. "Miguel is a great film-maker and we know that the movie will be a beautiful reminder. You'll see things that were never revealed."
Watch the trailer below
There is no secret, of course, in the result. In Italy Costa Rica's national side, the now beloved "La Sele", beat both Scotland and Sweden and narrowly lost to the mighty Brazil. The team, many of whom were part-timers, bank clerks or farmers, only exited the competition after their astonishing keeper, Gabelo Conejo, was injured and missed a knock-out game against Czechoslovakia.
Scotland supporters took the defeat to Costa Rica hard. Andy Roxburgh, the manager, had billed the opening game as "our World Cup final". Fans, fresh from seeing their team beat then World Cup champions Argentina at Hampden, had gone in to the match with a touch of swagger.
Roxburgh's then assistant and successor Craig Brown remembers the day well.
"We had studied Costa Rica and knew they could play.
"It was huge embarrassment for Scotland, according to the fans. They felt it was a great let down after the supreme optimism prior to the game. But to qualify to the World Cup you have to be a good team and the fans underestimated Costa Rica because it was not a fashionable name in football."
To be fair, La Sele wasn't even a fashionable team in Costa Rica before they qualified for Italy.
The film Italia 90 follows the real-life story of eight of the 22 players, including Jara and hero keeper Conejo, as they come to terms with making it in to the big glamour world of soccer- or being left at home. Mr Gómez said: "In the film we tell all about how hard it was to make it to the finals, the sacrifices that the players made to be far from their families for three months of pre-tournament preparations and the drama endured by those who were left off the final list." A tense trailer issued last week shows players - many with the mullets and moustaches of the day - sitting by phones that did not ring. The tournament and the victory over Scotland were huge moments in the history of Costa Rican sport.
Mr Brown may have viewed the Central Americans as worthy opponents. But the Costa Ricans - who call themselves Ticos - saw the Scots as giants to be slayed, professional players for a rich European nation that had qualified for its fifth successive World Cup.
The Costa Rican players were mostly modest earners, many of whom had never been to Europe before. Crucially, some of the money for the film will go to help members of the 22-man squad, few of whom enjoy the lifestyle of today's generation of Costa Rican stars, who will play England in the first round of next month's World Cup in Brazil.
Italia 90: The Movie goes on full release next week after being premiered tomorrow. Craig Brown won't want to watch. "I will not be falling over myself to see this film," he admitted. "I am not a film buff and the result didn't suit."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article