Panama's head coach, the Hispanic-Danish Thomas Christiansen, expressed satisfaction and pride in his players' performance after the friendly match against Mexico held this Thursday, despite the 0-1 defeat, and highlighted the growth of local football and the collective effort of a team with little time to work together. "They are players who have never played together, and with few days of work, it is complicated to implement a style," Christiansen pointed out. The coach lamented the defensive lapses that led to the Mexican goal and the lack of concentration in the final minutes. "I believe that the players can be proud of the match they have made. When you see a match like this against a team like Mexico, even if it's with local players, competing on equal terms until the last minute has a lot of merit," stated the coach at a press conference after the friendly duel. "Beyond the collective, which is difficult to evaluate due to the little time of work, the idea was to see the players individually and give them the opportunity to show themselves. But he has shown footballing maturity, he is an intelligent and interesting player, and we are going to continue observing him, like many others," Christiansen added. Christiansen acknowledged that the development of the match was as expected, with a greater dominance of the Mexican team due to their quality and the momentum of their game. "We lack a bit of luck, but also concentration and intensity. The goalkeeper made some great saves, which is very important, but in the end, we conceded due to a lack of concentration," he explained. Regarding forward Kadir Barría, Christiansen clarified: "we knew it was going to be a difficult match for him, he was alone with the center-backs, he had to move from side to side to press." "We knew how the pattern of the match was going to be, with them taking the initiative, and it was our turn to suffer and try to take advantage of the moments with the ball," he explained. "Several of these boys could be in the next March call-up," he noted. "It is something pending that we must improve," he concluded.
