The Panama team touched glory. The team led by Thomas Christiansen lost by the minimum of 1-0 against Ghana in the first match of the FIFA World Cup 2026. Caleb Yirenkyi scored for the Ghanaians.
Although Panama gave one of its best performances on the field, it was not enough to achieve any positive result.
Against Ghana at the Toronto stadium and in front of 42,942 spectators, Panama tried to be heroic.
Christiansen, knowing his ideology, did not change the starting 11. He only made some tweaks to the formation with Martínez acting as a false winger on the right and placing Yoel Bárcenas on the inside with Carlos Harvey. César Blackman repeated in the left sector.
The match started just as Panama wanted, attacking the spaces and using high pressure. Just after 2 minutes Cecilio Waterman had the first shot on goal in his boots, but the Ghanaian goalkeeper was well positioned to save the ball.
The first minutes were totally for Panama. One of the positive points for the team, especially for Orlando Mosquera, is that he reached his 50th game with the national team’s senior team.
At 30 minutes into the match, Ghana had no dangerous opportunities in front of Mosquera’s goal and Panama’s defended defense. It was not until the 37th minute when another opportunity came for Panama.
Jiovany Ramos reached the rival goal and took a shot that went just wide. The Panamanian team showed itself better in attack and Ghana continued to swim in deep waters.
It wasn’t until the second when Ghana reacted. The first minutes were theirs, including a shot by Ayew that Mosquera saved well.
At 60 minutes Martínez was very close to 0-1. The Panamanian midfielder had a ball left inside the area, but his shot went into the side netting. The Panamanian fans were still involved in the game supporting our team.
The game went back and forth. In the last minutes neither team stopped attacking trying to find the winning goal. Unfortunately for our team, Ghana took advantage of a counterattack to take the victory at 90+5 of the match.
After a cross from Aníbal Godoy, the team was left in a bad position in defense. They throw a long ball to Thomas-Asante, who wins one-on-one against José Córdoba. The Ghanaian sends the pass of life so that only Yirenkyi touched the ball and sent it to save.
Now Panama will have to think about Croatia for the second date of this group stage. The game will be played this Tuesday, June 23 at Toronto Stadium.
