29 May Panamá Califica para la Copa del Mundo
By William Upchurch
Oh what a headline that would be if Panama could finally make the World Cup held in Russia during the summer of 2018. Not for lack of support and love from the people of Panama, our adopted country has never qualified for “The Beautiful Game” in forty years of trying to make that “next level!”
Without equal, the FIFA World Cup is the most watched sporting event in the world. To put it in perspective, the Super Bowl has around 250 million viewers worldwide. The championship game of the FIFA World cup has over one billion (that’s 1/6 of the worlds population.) Total viewership of the 64 games of the tournament will be over 25 billion viewers.
As of today, Panama is in the final stage of qualification. The Panamanian national team is part of the the “CONCACAF” Zone (aka: The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football.) The final six teams have been decided in previous elimination play and the last leg of qualification has begun. After four games our boys in the red jerseys currently reside in third place behind Mexico and Costa Rica. The USA is in fourth place followed by Honduras and Trinidad & Tobago.
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The first three places in the CONCACAF zone move on the finals in Russia and the fourth place team has the opportunity to move on by beating another team from a different continental zone. Only six more games to go and the dream can become reality!!!
Since moving to Panama, I have been following the National Team’s progress. They have grown into a team that is competitive with all of the other countries in the region. In the 2015 Gold Cup, they finished in 3rd place, (in this bloggers extremely humble opinion, they should have played in the finals against Jamaica) after losing in the semifinals against Mexico thanks to some very questionable refereeing. We football fans believe the Panamanian National Team is ready to jump the next big hurdle.
Recently, Coronado Concierge Panama went to the qualification game between Panama and the USA with 45 of our closest friends. I witnessed first hand Panama taking charge of a game and playing a very good football team to a 1-1 draw. Their next game is an even bigger challenge as they take on the very formidable Costa Rican side in Costa Rica.
On June 13th, Panama returns to play in their home stadium to play Honduras (huge rivalry.) Coronado Concierge will be loading up busses to travel to Panama City to watch our adopted team play. What do ya say, want to come along and watch history being made???