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.