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National women's soccer team wins a ticket to the CONCACAF Gold Cup
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Women win a Gold Cup spot

by Eric Jackson, from other media

On May 26 Panama's women's soccer team, rated number 63 in the world, made its case for a revision of that ranking when it soundly thrashed Costa Rica, which is listed in the 46th spot. The scoring began in the 17th minute when the Tica defenders failed to break up a centering pass and Sumara Samuels let loose with an unstoppable blast. Costa Rica's fate was pretty much sealed in the 57th minute when Amara Wilson was sent off with her second yellow card. The Ticas held the Panameñas off through most of the remainder of the game, but in the final minutes of the second half they came out of their defensive shell and pressed their offense, looking to score the tie. But all that did was expose them in all their short-handed weakness, which allowed Ruth Moreno to score Panama's second goal in the 89th minute.

Call it luck or call it home field advantage, but most of the regular sportswriters called it a matter of Peruvian coach Lizandro Barbarán organizing a selection of fine Panamanian athletes into a very good team, one that completely dominated Costa Rica from start to finish.

The Costa Rican team had earlier lost to Guatemala, so went home eliminated from the hunt for one of the 16 tickets to the Women's World Cup in China next year.

On the 28th Guatemala and Panama played for a spot in the next tournament along the way, the Women's Gold Cup. It was a rout, with Panama winning 3-0.

In the other Meso-American group Mexico came out on top, which means that four of the Gold Cup teams are already set: hostesses the United States, a world power ranked number two behind Germany and ahead of Norway at the moment; Canada (11th in the world, according to FIFA); and Mexico (26). The Caribbean countries have yet to decide their two participants in the Gold Cup. In September there will be a tournament among Trinidad-Tobago, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

The two Caribbean teams will join the four squads already qualified to play a hexagonal tournament that will give the two that finish on top spots in the Women's World Cup, and will afford the third-place finisher a chance to play an Asian team for one final berth in the world championship.

Although soccer is growing by leaps and bounds in Panama, the sport still probably lags behind boxing and baseball in popularity. The rise of soccer here has been reflected in an increase in the number of kids playing it, and by our under-20 male teams twice qualifying for world championships, even if they couldn't accomplish much once they got to that level. With this advance by the women's national team, the female side of our adult soccer scene has arguably already come farther along than our men's national team has so far been able to make it.

But getting past the Gold Cup will be difficult. In an interview with FIFA's website, the legendary former American captain Mia Hamm, now retired as a player, opined that the US team is still the one to beat next year in China. Hamm notes that the Brazilians have improved through better coaching and the addition of teenage sensation Marta. "If she stays healthy and surrounds herself with the right people, she's going to get frighteningly dominant," Hamm acknowledged. But neither the Americans nor the Panamanians will get to play Brazil in the world championships without getting past the Gold Cup.

Were the 16 teams in the Women's World Cup chosen according to their current FIFA rankings, they would include Germany, the USA, Norway, Brazil, Sweden, France, North Korea, China, Denmark, Italy, Canada, England, Japan, Russia, Australia and Finland, in that order. Given the distribution of spots in the tournament among the regional soccer organizations, the lineup can't be like that --- but Panama would do well to look at those teams, to know the level of play to which they aspire.