The Panama Senior Basketball Team will introduce its new head coach: Puerto Rican Nelson Colón, who will face the challenge of getting Panama into the fight for the 2027 World Cup Qualifiers.
Colón will replace Argentine Gonzalo García, under whose leadership, Panama left with a 0-2 record in Group D of the World Cup Qualifiers alongside Argentina, Uruguay, and Cuba.
Panama's new selector comes with a respectable resume, highlighting his role as Head Coach of the Puerto Rico National Team (2021–2024), the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the FIBA World Cup 2023, and his appointment as coach of the Santurce Crabbers in 2024.
Furthermore, he has been a four-time champion of the Puerto Rico's Superior National Basketball League (BSN) (2014, 2015, 2020, 2022).
Colón will soon make his debut with the Panama National Team, as the next World Cup Qualifier match on February 27th will see them face Cuba at the Coliseo de la Ciudad Deportiva in Havana.
Panama's second match in the second window will also be away when they face Argentina at the Estadio Obras Sanitarias in Buenos Aires.
The top three teams from each group will advance to the second phase, so the matches against Cuba will be crucial to achieving the objective.
A total of 12 teams will advance to the third round, which will be divided into two groups of six. All teams will carry over their results from the First Round, which ensures that every match counts on the road to the 2027 World Cup.
In the Third Round, each team will play home and away against the three teams coming from the other group, distributed across three additional windows scheduled for August 2026, November 2026, and February 2027, again with two matches per team in each window.
At the end of these six additional matches per team, the top three from each group, along with the best fourth-placed team, will earn their ticket to the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027.
