From agony to ecstasy: Panama's remarkable journey to the 2018 World Cup and a night they'll never forget
'Four years ago they were tears of pain. Now they are tears of happiness. Panama is going to Russia 2018 and the hero is called Roman Torres'
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Your support makes all the difference.The dullest of qualifying groups ensured that England supporters have been largely insulated against any semblance of World Cup excitement over the past two years.
It was paper aeroplanes rather than plaudits that rained down on England at Wembley during a dreary 1-0 win over Slovenia that sealed qualification. In Panama on Tuesday night, though, things were taken up a notch or two.
It traditionally takes at least a couple of days to arrange an open-top bus tour for whoever lifts the FA Cup or Premier League. In Panama, though, they were parading the streets of the country’s capital almost as soon as the referee blew for full-time.
Their outburst of joy was entirely understandable. With just two minutes to go in their qualifier against already-Russia bound Costa Rica, Panama were drawing 1-1 – a result which would have sent Honduras to the World Cup and seen the USA, who were losing to Trinidad, bound for the play-offs.
Enter Roman Torres, latching onto a headed flick-on to dramatically thump the ball past Patrick Pemberton in the Costa Rica goal. It was more than the local commentator - who surely beat the record for shouting ‘goal’ more times in one minute than anyone else in history - and almost the entire country could handle.
With the scent of Russia firmly in their nostrils, the country exploded into a riot of celebration that stuck two fingers firmly up to those who question whether international football still has a place in the global football calendar.
It was a most unlikely scenario given that they were on the wrong end of a 4-0 thrashing against the USA in Orlando on Friday but as Torres reeled away in celebration, the nervous tension was shattered.
The country’s La Prensa newspaper called it ‘The Miracle of Roman’, comparing the elation of 2017 with the despair four years earlier, when Los Canaleros lost 3-2 on the final day of qualifying to the USA to hand a play-off place to Mexico.
“Four years ago they were tears of pain. Now they are tears of happiness. Panama is going to Russia 2018 and the hero is called Roman Torres,” it proclaimed.
Torres would, the paper justifiably opined, ‘go down in Panamanian history’. He might have to sneak back into the USA, though, given that he currently plays his club football for the Seattle Sounders in the MLS. He might also struggle to find the shirt he threw off as he hurdled the advertising hoardings following his strike. Expect eBay to go into meltdown in this part of the world if it ever resurfaces.
For a country ranked 60th in the Fifa rankings, it’s an astonishing performance to come third in one of the World Cup’s most unforgiving qualification sections.
Gary Stempel, the son of an English mother and Panamanian father, spent time in charge of the national team and told Independent Sport back in 2009 of the lively reception that awaited him in countries like El Salvador.
“In my first major game as coach of the Panama under-21 (in the final of the Central American Games in Honduras) I had to give my half time team talk drenched in urine after walking through the tunnel behind a referee who was getting bags full of the stuff thrown at him,” he said.
It made Millwall, where he worked for a decade until 1996, look like the Garden of Eden.
Stempel revealed that almost his entire side was made up of players from broken homes, with many of them having had more than their fair share of brushes with the law. One of his then stars, Jose Garces was known as Pistolero – for his love of guns rather than his ability to rifle in goals.
Panama had fallen at the second hurdle of CONCACAF qualifying for the 2010 World Cup. Now, just seven years on, they can begin planning for a World Cup finals draw in Moscow, taking their place alongside the likes of Germany, Brazil, Argentina, England and Spain.
The USA, meanwhile, will spend next summer watching on in envy. Their humiliating defeat to Trinidad and Tobago will see them miss their first World Cup since 1986.
Panama’s win against Costa Rica was not without controversy, with referee Walter Lopez one of the few people in the stadium who believed that Gabriel Torres’ inadvertent backside intervention from a corner had actually crossed the line.
But by the time his namesake was running topless at breakneck speed after a goal that generated no-such quibbles, that was a distant memory. In this part of Central America, at least.
There will doubtless be some sore heads across the country today. But having added some much-needed magic to World Cup qualifying, the party could well continue until next summer.
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