Panama warms up for next step of its World Cup quest

Panama has never made it to FIFA’s pinnacle, the World Cup soccer tournament. However, in this cycle they have yet to be eliminated in their quest for one of the CONCACAF --- Central America, North America and the Caribbean --- regional slots at the World Cup to be held in Germany in 2006. Having advanced through the first round of play, Panama’s next challenge will be a pair of games with the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia to be played in June.

To get ready, the Panamanian squad has been playing some friendly matches and looking pretty good.

On April 28 at Rommel Fernandez Stadium, Bermuda came to town.

The Panamanians immediately took control of the ball, missing a number of good opportunities --- including a point-blank header on an open net --- in the first minutes. But then in the 12th minute Bermuda’s Stephen Astwood broke away and put the ball in the net to give the visitors a 1-0 lead.

Panama resumed its ball control, but some good Bermudan goalkeeping kept the home team at bay for the next 10 minutes.

But in soccer you usually can’t let the other team dominate your end of the field and get away with it, and when in the 25th minute the ball squirted out of a wild scramble in front of Bermuda’s goal, Ricardo Phillips was there to put it in the lower left-hand corner of the net and tie the game.

The Panamanian side continued to threaten for the rest of the half, including with a shot by William Aguilar that bounced off of the crossbar during the 35th minute. However, the teams went to the dressing rooms at halftime with the score tied.

In the second half Bermuda’s luck ran out, or more accurately, their resistance was worn down. At 21 minutes of the second half, Julio César “Panagol” Dely Valdés headed the ball into the net to give Panama the lead. Two minutes later Luis Tejada stole the ball in the Bermuda end and blasted a right-footer past the goalie to seal the victory at 3-1. To ice the cake, in the 46th minute Tejada made a beautiful long pass to Phillips, who scored his second goal of the night.

After a couple of days to rest, the Panamanian team flew to Guatemala for another friendly match on Mayday. That game was not nearly as one-sided as the one against Bermuda, and, unfortunately, not televised in Panama. The accounts published in the Panamanian and Guatemalan dailies concurred in calling it a sloppy game with lots of errors, one of which left Panama short handed when Ricardo Phillips got a red card. Nevertheless, Dely Valdés took advantage of Guatemalan errors to score two goals, the second on a penalty kick, to the home team’s single score.

The conventional wisdom is that all this leaves Panama as the well prepared favorite against St. Lucia.

Also in this section:
Panamanians in Major League Baseball
Boxing Night in Juan Diaz
National Soccer team warms up against Bermuda, Guatemala
FSU-Panama wins the local American Football championship

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Panama warms up for St. Lucia