To the surprise of no one, Alexandre Guimaraes has been relieved of the technical director position with Panama's national team. Here is the official press release from FEPAFUT, the Panamanian football federation, with the full text of the termination letter included. There are reports in Panama's La Prensa and Mexico's Medio Tiempo that say about the same thing, but Medio Tiempo is reporting that FEPAFUT is preparing a protest of the referee's actions during the game and the crowd behavior. An overturning of the result is not going to happen, so I don't know what the federation thinks it's going to accomplish by doing this.
So now that Guimaraes is gone, the next issue is whether Alvarado will join him out the door.
UPDATE (6/27, 8:36am): So Guimaraes is saying that he really wasn't fired; the contract expired when Panama was eliminatred. I know there really is a distinction, but in the end the outcome is the same.
There are always questionable calls in games. Sometimes the refs miss a call but the blatent calls and no calls are terrible for the game. The US and Mex got very questionable call in the Gold Cup and I can see this happening again in WCQ. Guatemala is already bracing for the T&T game in T&T. They know the unfavorable calls are coming their way and they are wondering if will result in their elimination from the HEX. The game would be much better if the refs were not influenced to make the "home" call.
Posted by: James LaGrange | June 25, 2008 at 08:36 AM