WELSH footballs tribute to Gary  Speed was impeccably staged  at the Cardiff City stadium last  night but visiting opponents  Costa Rica paid the former national team  manager the ultimate compliment by delivering a thoroughly professional display  to secure a well-deserved victory.  

On a difficult and emotional night for  the Welsh players on show, few of them  enhanced their reputations in a generally  lack-lustre performance that simply magnified the fact that with only a handful of  star names missing the depth of talent  available to incoming Chris Coleman is extremely limited.  

Wales went into the game without  Gareth Bale, Wayne Hennessey and regular  skipper Aaron Ramsey, who nevertheless  led the teams out alongside stand-in captain Craig Bellamy and Speeds two sons,  Ed and Tommy.  

And a near to capacity crowd could not  wait for the pre-match formalities to be  over, launching into a spontaneous and  prolonged round of applause for the  much-missed former manager without  waiting for referee Howard Webbs  whistle.  

When the match got under way, it was  the home side that created the first opening, Bellamy cutting inside to pick out  David Vaughan who was unable to keep  his effort from 20 yards on target and  Costa Rica showed their opponents how it  should be done with their first direct  threat two minutes later.  

Fulhams Bryan Ruiz made the goal with  a slide-rule pass into the feet of Joel  Campbell, who must have been surprised  by the lack of a challenge as he picked his  spot beyond third choice goalkeeper Lewis  Price.  

Encouraged by their start, the visitors  enjoyed a good spell with plenty of possession and they worked hard to close  down the space when Wales, chiefly  through Vaughan, tried to put together a  sustained spell of play.  

But the home defence had yet to settle  and Campbell might have doubled his tally  in the 18th minute when he sped past  Darcy Blake and stung Prices fingers with  a vicious shot.  And it was only during the later stages of  the opening period that the home side  began to put their attacking game together, Chris Gunter overlapping in the  29th minute to test keeper Taylor Navas  for the first time.  

A couple of Welsh corners followed,  Steve Morison failing on both occasions to  keep his headers on target, but the Norwich striker was desperately unlucky not  to equalise four minutes before the break  when from another Vaughan flag kick, his  effort rebounded down from the crossbar  but failed to cross the goal-line.  And on the stroke of half-time, the  visitors defence failed to deal with another corner, the ball falling for Ashley  Williams who leaned back in connecting  and cleared the bar by some distance.  

Wales were almost caught napping from  the restart, an over-hit pass by Randall  Azofeifa forcing Price to save low down to  his right at the expense of a corner, but  they should have been back on level terms  in the 50th minute when Bellamy seized  on a defensive error, only to lash the ball  too high from 15 yards.  

The Central American side, though 21  places lower than their hosts in the Fifa  ranking, did their best to take the sting out  of the contest by playing keep-ball, much  to the frustration of their opponents and  the crowd, but they werent completely  toothless as Bryan Oviedo showed with a  long-range effort that had Price scrambling to cover his far post.  

The first Wales change on 63 minutes  saw Jack Collison replace a disappointing  Joe Allen only seconds before Hal Robson-Kanu brought a decent save from  Navas and the West Ham United replacement was followed in short order by Sam  Vokes, and veteran duo Joe Ledley and  Danny Gabbidon.  

The wholesale changes did little for the  pace of the game, which was rapidly becoming something of an exhibition from  the visitors point of view and had it not  been for the fact that the supporters, who  periodically saluted Speeds memory, were  prepared to forgive a tepid Welsh performance the home side might have  suffered a backlash  Goal-scorer Campbell went close to rubbing salt in the wound when he pushed  forward for a shot that struck a post in the  78th minute, but the home side were  unable to find a meaningful response until  the closing stages when substitute Joe  Ledley hit the upright from a free kick and,  though the ball was poked over the line by  Robert Earnshaw, the Cardiff striker was  flagged offside.