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sportsAlso in this section: Panama’s hopes to go the World Cup dim An awful performance in Port-of-Spain by Eric Jackson At its best, Panama’s national soccer team plays a tight defensive game and has a few explosive players who always pose the threat of scoring on a breakaway or a good shot. But against Trinidad and Tobago on June 4, we saw none of that. It was a sordid tale of a series of Panamanian defensive mistakes, two of which the islanders converted into goals, and a solid home team defense that left little room for any Panamanian offense. The 2-0 loss left Panama in the cellar of the six-team CONCACAF tournament from which three teams will emerge with tickets to next year’s World Cup in Germany and a fourth will play play an Asian team for another pass to the big show. On Wednesday, June 8, the heavily favored Americans will be in town to play Panama at Rommel Fernandez Stadium, and although in a mathematical sense it’s not a must-win match, the psychological dynamics of the tournament may very well make it so after the humiliation in Trinidad. Halfway through the first half it was still a scoreless tie, but by then Trinidad-Tobago had established the almost complete ball control that they’d enjoy throughout the game and the Panamanian side’s defensive lapses had given up a couple of opportunities that for sheer luck would have had the home team up two-zip at that point. Then, at about 29 minutes, Panamanian scoring threat Gavilán Gómez got yellow carded and could thereafter play with less reckless abandon, thus blunting one of Panama’s main scoring threats. Four and a half minutes after that, a third major defensive blunder let opponent John Stern get the ball right in front of the Panamanian net, and this time Panama’s luck ran out. When at 39 minutes Panama gave the ball away deep in their defensive end Trinidad-Tobago couldn’t convert it into a goal, but then about four minutes later Panama got a free kick in the semicircle just outside the penalty area and went a long way toward equalizing their opponents’ karma by failing to score on that occasion. It was the only serious threat that Panama posed all night. And so went the uninspired second half, until at about 25:15 Trinidad-Tobago’s Dennis Lawrence took a long pass down the right side of the field with no Panamanian defender in a position to do anything about him, and he race down the field and blasted the ball into the net. And so it ended. And so might end Panama’s chances: our national soccer team has but two points to show for four games played.
Yes, there are six more
matches to go in this tournament. But the chances for this
country’s first-ever appearance in a World Cup depend on a
drastic change of momentum.
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