Hello haters. It’s time to put down those frosty bottles of Haterade and sing a song that you should have learned back in October when the National Football Team of Costa Rica played the National Football Team of Mexico and won the final qualifier match before the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. In case you have forgotten, the lyrics below should be sung to the tune of the nursery rhyme “London Bridge is Falling Down:”

• Saborio scored-a-goal,
• Scored-a-goal,
• Scored-a-goal,
• Saborio scored-a-goal,
• Sa-bo-rio

We have the dedicated fans of the Real Salt Lake (RSL) team of Major League Soccer in the United States to thank for the tune above. They are not haters, and they sing the tune above in the present verbal tense when former Deportivo Saprissa striker Alvaro Saborio is on the pitch (or on the field, if you will). They sing, he listens, and then he scores. He has done this more than 50 times for the RSL in the last four years, and he has done it for his beloved National Football Team of Costa Rica 31 times. Despite this scoring glory, Saborio has a fair share of haters in Costa Rica.

The hater phenomenon was discussed at length by the Costa Rica Star in August 2013, and Saborio was mentioned as a case study. Two weeks later, a dispositional attitude study published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology confirmed the popular belief that “haters are going to hate” no matter what. One of the observations made by the researchers was that:

…someone’s attitude toward architecture may in fact tell us something about their attitude toward health care because both attitudes would be biased by a disposition to like or dislike stimuli.

Even with scientific research to elucidate on the hater phenomenon, it is a bit difficult to understand the hater spectrum against Alvaro Saborio, who has done a lot to improve Costa Rica’s football image on the global stage. It turns out that once haters latch on to their targets, it’s pretty hard for them to let go. Haters, however, are routinely silenced, which is exactly what happened on Tuesday night at the Chinese-donated National Stadium in La Sabana Metropolitan Park.

Saborio entered the game during the second half to assume his usual role of clean-up man and executioner; his mission this time was to send the scrappy National Football Team of Paraguay home without a victory. La Sele really needed to win this one for the fans in Costa Rica; after all, President Laura Chinchilla came to wish the team well as they prepare to leave for Brazil.

Star striker Joel Campbell had previously lit up the scoreboard with a masterful, crowd-pleasing goal. At the 72-minute mark, Bryan Ruiz initiated a basic attack play with a solid pass to Michael Barrantes, who noticed Saborio charging forward towards Paraguay’s goal. Barrantes found an opening to launch an assist that Saborio skillfully received before firing off a lefty short-range rocket that was no match for Paraguayan goalkeeper R. Junior.

Haters turned silent as fans were ecstatic. We can only hope that Saborio’s knack for silencing haters will continue when Costa Rica faces England, Uruguay and Italy at the World Cup later this year.