Last summer when the draw for the third round of Concacaf World Cup qualifying was announced, some of the wild hubris surrounding Canada's chances for advancement centred on the assumption Panama wasn't that good. Honduras would win the group, said conventional thinking, with Canada strolling through in second, likely breaking a sweat in the process.
However, in the span of two hours on Friday Panama announced to the rest of the region that are actually quite good indeed. So unless Honduras remains surprisingly bad, Canada's chances for moving past this group are much shakier than they were even 24 hours ago.
At the very least it sets up a massive game for Canada against Honduras on Tuesday at BMO Field.
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I was only able to watch the second half, but Panama impressed in their ability to work the ball quickly and at times attractively through the Honduran midfield. The scoreline finished 2-0 but if not for a missed injury time penalty it would have been even more embarrassing for Honduras.
It's always a bit silly to prognosticate from just one game, but it appears now we have Panama, Honduras and Canada standing in a circle, each with a gun pressed to the temple of the guy on the left, trying to figure out who gets the top two spots in the group. That's not what Canada supporters signed up for last summer.
Can Panama keep this up for the remaining five qualifying matches? Who knows. And of course, even if they do, their 'up' is not something Canada can't (at least theoretically) handle. FC Dallas' Blas Perez scored both goals Friday, one of them fairly spectacular, but he's no Lio Messi. He may not even be Dwayne Anthony De Rosario.
The point is that Panama offered a neutral observer the sense they believed in each other on the pitch and that the result of the game was never truly in doubt. Honduras was crap. No cohesion going forward, nothing in their play that delivered hope. They hit the crossbar from a free kick and a long ball or two in the direction of Carlos Costly came close, but translate the Spanish match reports, anglicize a few names and you may as well be reading about Canada.
Oh, speaking of the match reports, the Honduran fans are pissed. Completely knee-jerk of course, but a sample entry from the Diez.hn liveblog: SI ESTE TECNICO SIGUE CON NOSOTROS SERIA UN INFARTO PARA MMI (sic). I'll let you run that through Google Translate but the general sentiment is that they want a head.
So Honduras arrives in Toronto next week humiliated and facing the prospect that by late Tuesday they will be tied with Cuba at the bottom of the group. I know when I'm picking a fight I always look for the guy who's desperate and cornered.
The life is never easy when it comes to Canadian soccer.
Photo credit: JorgeBRAZIL Flickr stream