“When the goal went in, I could have gone out and got so drunk I wouldn’t have remembered a thing the next day.” You and the rest of the country, Hernán.
The Panama supervisor, Hernán Darío “Bolillo” Gómez, says he is a “devotee” and demands he “knew” there was a path back yet time was running out as was trust. Looking crosswise over at his players he saw “a phantom” show up before them. In the last minutes of the last diversion last October, they ended up outside the qualifying places – the fantasy of a first World Cup denied at the last, as it had been four years sooner. Drawing with Costa Rica, Panama urgently required an objective from some place, anyplace.
What came next was, says Édgar Carvajal, the associate supervisor, “such as something passed on by God”. A long ball, headed on by Luis Tejada, and there, steaming in, was Román Torres – the centre‑back, an immense, dreadlocked figure. “Despite everything I get goosebumps,” Carvajal says. The ball collided with the net. Torres killed, whipped his shirt, jumped the notice sheets and hustled along the running track, fans climbing on to wall, drinks tossed into the air.
“We had envisioned it, imagined, yearned for that minute,” says Gabriel Gómez, the nation’s most topped player, looking at the objective where the ball went in. He turns, looks the other way. “We’d been thumped out at this opposite end four years previously and that hurt. This time everything fell off: the outcome from Trinidad where the USA out of the blue lost and our objective, which came exactly at the correct minute.” Panama – yes, Panama – were setting off to the World Cup.
Not exactly. It was the 88th moment, two minutes in addition to stoppage time to hold tight and never at any point let go. Damage time objective had taken a toll them the possibility of going to Brazil 2014 and they couldn’t give that a chance to happen once more. Crying ballboys kicked balls into the stands, never to be returned. A substitute jumped from the seat, kept running over and booted another as far away as he could. A couple of more seconds spent. At that point somebody turned the lights out.
From the workplace under the stand where she works, Elida de Mitchel showed up on the pitch, strolling straight past the ref, and put on a show to swoon. It was a policeman’s thought. Anything to stop the amusement, rundown the clock. Three minutes she was there before in the end Gabriel Gómez and the substitute goalkeeper José Calderón “helped” her off, asking what was occurring in the other amusement as they went. The USA were all the while losing, she said. “Beyond any doubt?” “Yes, you’re in the World Cup!” When the shriek finally went Bollillo slipped to his knees, holding a ball. As he and Torres moved round together the goalscorer yelled: “You merit this!”
One of the photographs Bolillo is fondest of shows Torres grasping a fan who is on the track, not in the stands as he ought to be. A policeman arrives and embraces both. Past the Rommel Fernández stadium in Panama City, there was disorder, individuals flooding the lanes. The players marched on the back of a fire motor. Liquor sold out and the gathering ran throughout the night. The president pronounced the following day a national occasion. “The feeling, the fulfillment, the conviction,” Bolillo says. “In life you can dream and dreams can work out as expected.”