Panama reach quarterfinals
PANAMA beat Bolivia 3-1 yesterday to finish second in Group C and qualify for the Copa America quarterfinals after tournament hosts the United States were eliminated following a 1-0 loss to group winners Uruguay.
The win moved Panama, playing in only their second Copa America, up to second on six points, three more than the US, as the central American side reached the knockout stage for the first time. Uruguay finished with nine points.
Jose Fajardo opened the scoring for Panama while substitutes Eduardo Guerrero and Cesar Yanis scored late to seal all three points, with Bolivia’s lone goal coming from Bruno Miranda.
“Football is daily suffering, but today there was a lot at stake,” Panama boss Thomas Christiansen told reporters. “We knew that not even a win guaranteed that we would make it to the quarterfinals after the first goal.
“Our performance dropped at times… they (Bolivia) began to control the game and they scored. We started to get a bit more anxious.
“But we reacted quickly. Our players were able to overcome those odds and the substitutions made a huge difference.”
While Panama wait to learn their quarterfinal opponents with Group D set to finish their games today morning, Bolivia exit the tournament after three straight losses having conceded 10 goals and scoring just one.
“We need to leverage all the lessons we learned here in Copa America,” Bolivia coach Antonio Carlos Zago said.
“This is a match where you cannot make a mistake and we made mistakes today, so we need to correct those errors.
“We need to continue working and believe that everything is going to improve as a whole, so that in the future we are going to have a stronger and more competitive national team.” – Reuters