Man, the city is going nuts. Everybody is driving up and down the streets around my building honking their horns and waving Panamanian flags out the windows. And this is all because their team just lost to the US in today’s CONCACAF Gold Cup in soccer at the Meadowlands in NJ.
But they’re celebrating because their team put up a really good fight. They fought the US to a 0-0 tie in regulation, then tied them again 0-0 after a 30 minute overtime. The game was decided on penalty kicks, which Panama lost 3-1.
Panama is the smallest country in the competition, and the US is the largest. This has actually been quite the Cinderella (or I should say Cenicienta) story. Panama wasn’t given much of a chance to get anywhere close to the final, but they beat Colombia on Friday (the celebration then went on for many hours).
It’s going to be a noisy night.