When hosts Germany take on Costa Rica on June 9 at 5 pm local time at Allianze arena to kick-start football World Cup 2006, -- the festival of football -- the spotlight would not be on the players on the field but the man who would have been on the goal had he not been shown the door by coach Jurgen Klinsmann – Oliver Kahn.

The 36-year-old veteran was told that he would have to play second fiddle to Klinsmann’s first choice Jens Lehmann by the ruthless Klinsmann himself, triggering nationwide uproar over a decision which may stand the test of Klinsmann’s time.

Whether “Klinsi killed king Kahn” as popular news paper Bild swore or not will be known only after the world cup, but it’s a truth that Kahn has had nagging injury problems and was not in his best elements under the bar, whereas Lehmann has had a nice outing with Arsenel in the English league.

The Germans just need to get over the bitter wrangle which divided the nation to start on a winning note in the 2006 soccer world cup and leap forward to relegate the mercurial Kahn’s shadow to the backyard of their soccer history, rather than it pulling them back to suicidal dressing room wars.

There aren’t many takers for their opponents Costa Rica, though coach Alexandre Guimarase is a confident man after his team won a friendly with South Korea in Oakland, US, albeit through a penalty by Albaro Saborio.

Guimarase admitted that his team wasn’t attacking enough, but vowed to make amends. Curiously enough, all of its opponents in Group A – Germany, Poland and Equador had their representatives in Oakland. May be it is definite sign that Costa Rica is being watched seriously, but it takes more than that to win a world cup soccer match against a powerhouse like Germany and that too in their home turf.

Football’s governing body FIFA has approved Costa Rica’s new uniforms for the World Cup 2006 matches in Germany, with its traditional red, white and blue shades.

Costa Rica is playing its third world cup. It had qualified for the World Cup in Italy in 1990 and in Japan and Korea in 2002, though it couldn’t make much of an impact.

Costa Rica’s base camp for the 2006 football World Cup would be at Lahr for training before it moves to Heidelberg. The German team will stay near Berlin at the noble 'Schlosshotel Grunewald'. Most expensive rooms here cost around 3,000 euros per night.

The Allianz Arena stadium which hosts the opening match of the 2006 world cup soccer was built at a cost of 280 million Euros, but the pitch has had its share of woes, forcing the Bayern management to relay it.