Panama beats US reigning champions to reach Gold Cup final

Panama beat the United States, the current champion of the Gold Cup tournament, in the semifinal (1-1, 4-5 on penalties) on Wednesday.

“In the end, you can practice a lot (the penalties), but I think that today the faith and desire have made Panama go to the final,” said Thomas Christiansen the Spanish-Danish coach at a press conference.

Panama will play the final this Sunday against Mexico, which beat Jamaica 3-0 in the other semifinal.

Before more than 30,000 people at the Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego with an overwhelming majority of American fans, Panama qualified for its third Gold Cup final and will opt for its first title in this tournament after losing those in 2005 and 2013.

The match ended goalless after 90 minutes in the regulation, Iván Anderson put the Panamanian team ahead in minute 99 and the Colombian-American Jesús Ferreira equalized for the United States in minute 105.

“The match against the United States could go one way or the other. We knew how they were going to play, how we had to play them. In the first part, I think we were pretty good in the last 20 minutes, we managed to dominate the game. In the second half we lost it a bit”, reflected Christiansen.

Christiansen stressed that this was the second semifinal in three weeks for Panama, after the one they played in the Concacaf Nations League.

“This doesn’t happen every year. Today was the time to take advantage of it and get into that great final, which is the dream of every Panamanian I am happy with all the players and staff … Now it’s time for hard recovery work.

Christiansen also admitted that they believed it “almost impossible” to beat the United States at home with the fans urging them on.