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Celebrating Panama’s World Cup debut

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Maybe it takes an American of a certain age to understand that Panama should feel no shame in its World Cup results—three losses in three games, including that 6-1 pounding by England last Sunday. Someone who witnessed the United States’ showing in the 1990 Cup certainly can relate.

Back then, it was perfectly clear that the label “American soccer player” was an oxymoron, like “living dead” or “jumbo shrimp.” The Yanks had showed up at the Cup for the first time in 40 years with a collection of callow amateurs in a den of hardened professionals, in no way comparable to other Cup participants. And they immediately were humiliated by Czechoslovakia, 5-1, on the way to an 0-3 record.

It was a requiem for a lightweight and brought mocking headlines from the soccer-savvy Europeans. The newspapers in Italy, that year’s host nation, dismissed the Yanks as “poor kids, thrown to the massacre,” with a defense “made of butter.” (Only one other time in that tournament did a team allow 5 goals as the 1990 per-game average of 2.2 set the still-standing record for lowest in the 88-year history of the event.)

But here’s the thing: One of the U.S. players, Chris Sullivan, made the point right after being publicly humbled by Czechoslovakia that “we deserved this. But just remember: We’re the students here. Why not have the rest of the world read that 5-1 score and know that we’re the students of the game? We’re still learning.”

Yes, and now we have Panama’s burdensome trial in Russia, its first dance at sport’s biggest international party. Though not as soccer-challenged as that 1990 U.S. team, though boxing and baseball are more entrenched in its sports culture, Panama competes with a pool of talent severely limited by a population, 4.1 million, that is less than half that of New York City.

“When the coach [Hernan Dario Gomez] said we were coming here to learn, that is exactly what he meant,” said Panama’s 37-year-old captain Felipe Baloy, known as Pipe (Pee-pay). “We were coming up against world-class teams with great players.”

Baloy realized that, the final score aside, to have produced his country’s first World Cup goal late in that England match was “something big. We’re learning a lot. The result makes us sad, but the first goal is important.” It merely set off national merrymaking.

The newspaper Marca in Spain declared that “Panama found themselves in front of a cyclone, they came up against a deluge of goals and found themselves inundated.” Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport called the game “not a match” but “an English stroll.”

In sports, of course, everyone is looking for a Rosy Scenario, something akin to the ideal romantic partner. But sometimes, you don’t have to win to win.

In 1990, a central character on the U.S. team, Tab Ramos, was 23 years old and devoid of professional experience. Immediately after he and his mates were taken apart by Czechoslovakia, Ramos’ thoroughly reasonable attitude was, “This is the greatest experience of my life. If I had to go through it again, just the same way, I would.”

Not signing any articles of surrender, that. Ramos recognized the expectations, that American soccer barely was crawling then. Sure enough, he wound up playing in two more World Cups as the Yanks grew into legitimate Cup actors—their failure to make this year’s tournament notwithstanding. Amid their run of six consecutive World Cups, they pushed to the quarterfinals in 2002.

So Panama lost three games and went home. What’s so bad about that? Its players, and its nation’s fans, got a front-row seat at the most watched sports event on earth. Of the 201 national teams worldwide, Los Canaleros—“the Canal Men”—were one of only 32 to make it to this summer’s big show.

“We qualified [for the World Cup],” Gomez said. “We have to celebrate that.”

Felipe Baloy got it. “The experience in Russia has been top-notch,” he said. “We hope that Panama can keep going. As a group, we’ve had a good coexistence in which we’ve spent time with younger players, who will stay with us.”

There is a verse in the Panamanian national anthem that, translated to English, goes like this:

Progress caresses your path.
To the rhythm of a sublime song,
You see both your seas roar at your feet
Giving you a path to your noble mission.

See you in 2022, Panama.

Upside down in Trinidad

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This time, the United States needs only a tie in its final World Cup qualifying match in Trinidad.

This time, home-standing Trinidad & Tobago (with only one win in nine qualifying matches) isn’t nearly the threat it was in 1989, when a T&T victory or tie would have sent the Trinboganians to the 1990 Italy-based World Cup instead of the Yanks.

This time, the atmosphere can’t possibly match the frenzy in Port of Spain 28 years ago, when all residents of the dual-island Caribbean nation appeared to be dressed in red; when the week leading up to the game was a wild party of Calypso and reggae music in the streets—“jump-ups,” they were called; when the passionate locals giddily chanted, “We goin’!” and “Bum dem!” (“Burn them” visitors.)

It might have been intimidating to our small group of American reporters if it hadn’t been so downright entertaining and spirited. And good-natured. Amid the cries of “Search and destroy!” smiling T&T natives greeted us—we were easy to spot—with wishes of good luck or teased us with calls of “Yankee Doodle went to town.” Followed by, “Where is your red?”

Red, the national color, was on sale everywhere. Caps, shirts, underwear, scarfs. Schoolchildren had replaced their standard uniforms (some red, but many of other hues) with all red. Songs from Trinidadian Calypso singer Blue Boy’s latest album, all related to the World Cup effort, were booming throughout the capital city: “Journey” and “Football Dance” and “Goal!” and “Trinidad Boys, Tobago Boys” and “Road to Italy,” with the lyric, “When the Yankees come to the stadium/We’re going to beat them like bongos.”

T&T’s team was called “Strike Squad” and prided itself on “Kaisoca”—Calypso soccer—a flowing, fast-paced, dynamic style that seemed superior to the mechanical, defensive methods of a U.S. squad severely limited in international experience.

That was seven years before the first legitimate U.S. professional league, MLS, debuted. The Yanks had not been to the World Cup in 40 years, and their mostly bland play through the ’89 qualifying process had their federation officials worried that the commitment to place the 1994 World Cup in the United States could be rescinded if the team failed to earn a berth in Italy.

So our little knot of U.S. scribblers was mostly of the belief that the Trinboganians, who clearly cared more about international soccer than the typical American, would have their wishes fulfilled. They chanted, “T&T, we want a goal. On the roooooad, on the rooooad, on the rooooad…..to It-a-ly.” During pre-game festivities, one T&T fan marched around the stadium with a sign, “Even Bush”—George H.W. Bush still was in the White House then—“supports T&T.”

We stayed at the famous “upside-down hotel,” built into the side of a steep hill, with the lobby entered from the top of the hill and the elevators going down. The 10th floor is at the bottom. Everything was just disorienting enough to be memorable.

The game was played on a Sunday afternoon. That morning, we U.S. reporters—there couldn’t have been more than six or seven of us—were invited to have breakfast at the hilltop mansion of then-U.S. ambassador Charles Gargano. He politely welcomed the representatives of such big-time publications as the New York Times, New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. But it was me, from little old Newsday on Long Island, who got the long-lost friendship treatment. Because Gargano had made his fortune in construction on Long Island, and his son recently had built a site in my village of Babylon.

(A few years later, Gargano was in some hot water for iffy campaign contributions, but I can assure everyone that I never saw the man again).

Anyway, from Gargano’s perch above the city, we could look down on the National Stadium, already overflowing with more than 30,000 red-clad spectators more than five hours before kickoff. Among my fellow journalists then was the Times’ esteemed George Vecsey, who noted in his 2014 book, “Eight World Cups,” that then-T&T soccer federation honcho Jack Warner had had 45,000 tickets printed, creating a dangerous overcrowding situation.

Somehow, everything turned out all right, in spite of the Trinboganians’ crushing disappointment when the U.S. conjured an unlikely 1-0 victory. The Yanks’ decisive goal, a looping 30-yard left-footer by Paul Caligiuri in the 30th minute, arguably is one of the two most historic shots in American soccer history. (Joe Gaetjens’ 1950 World Cup goal that shocked England is the other.)

The exact time of the score could be questioned. Because there was no scoreboard clock, my wristwatch served as “official” timer for our handful of scribes. More remarkable than the U.S. victory—and the Yanks’ sudden efficiency after months of bumbling around—was the grand reaction of the T&T crowd.

It sent the American players off the field to warm applause (and more Calypso music). It called the weeping T&T players back for a final lap around the stadium with chants of “We want Strike Squad.” Following a chaotic round of interviews in the sweaty, cramped, celebratory U.S. lockerroom, several of us reporters walked back to our hotel just after sundown and were repeatedly called to by locals along the way.

“Hey, Yankee.” Uhhhh, yes? “Congratulations!”

This time, I won’t be there. But it couldn’t match 1989, anyway.