Christiansen renews with Panama but asks for more investment

The Panamanian coach, the Spanish-Danish Thomas Christiansen, said Monday that he sees a “promising future” for Panamanian soccer and highlighted the importance of “more investment” in infrastructure and in the training of coaches at all levels.

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In a press conference regarding his renewal on the bench until the 2026 World Cup, Christiansen and the president of the Panamanian Soccer Federation (Fepafut), Manuel Arias, spoke of the fact that the plans until that year include standing out in the Liga de Nations and the Gold Cup and involve the base players in those tournaments but also projects for the World Cup.

“We have a promising future,” said Christiansen, who valued Panama’s role in the last part of the Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifiers as positive, although it did not qualify, before which he asserted that “we must look to the future.”

Proud of the qualifying phase for the 2022 World Cup

Panama can be “proud of the qualifiers” in the past, since “21 points were achieved in the octagonal. But Costa Rica made a spectacular finish, before that we just have to congratulate them and now more because they already qualified for the World Cup. We have to look at the future,” he said.

The coach stressed that in the short term there is the League of Nations, in which Panama depends on itself and in which it must at least get into the final, as well as some friendlies scheduled for next September and November.

Player and coach training

“The most important thing in these four years” that remain for the 2026 World Cup “is the training”, not only of the player but of the coaches, “the training in the different provinces”.

Next July, Christiansen will begin a tour of the different provinces of the country “to make the coaches more technical.”

“The biggest goal I have is to support soccer in Panama,” said Christiansen, who highlighted the need to “invest more” in infrastructure, so that they don’t have to “share a training camp with 4 teams with bad, difficult schedules.” .

The Federation considers it necessary to make investments

The president of Fepafut agreed with Christiansen on the need for more investment in not only national infrastructure but also that of the clubs, in the preparation of players and coaches and also in tournaments.

“Development in all categories” is being pursued, said Arias, who announced that by July 2023 “the first two fields” of a long-awaited High Performance Center are expected to be ready.

A High Performance Center in operation

The construction process of the Center “has already begun”, it is developed with “funds that come from FIFA and that requires deadlines. The process is much more advanced than it seems,” Arias assured.

Contents with Christiansen

Regarding the renewal of the coach, Arias praised Christiansen’s work since his arrival in 2020 because “he has brought many good things, demonstrated his quality as a person in his walk and has managed to convey that same message to the players.”

“We have felt satisfied” with Christiansen’s performance, “I think there was a generational renewal, I think he was able to see the DNA of the Panamanian player and that the game could take advantage of it,” Arias concluded.