Costa Rica and Panama have new coaches

Last week Costa Rica made a replacement for Hernán Medford at the helm of the national team.  His name is Rodrigo Kenton, a Costa Rican with extensive experience with national teams.  He was an assistant coach to Bora Milutinovic when he coached Costa Rica in 1990 and Nigeria in 1998, and he was also a manager of the junior teams in Costa Rica (which he qualified for the 2004 Olympics) and Guatemala.  Kenton becomes the 24th Costa Rican to lead the national team.

Panama made their move today, selecting the Englishman (and longtime Panamanian resident) Gary Stempel as the national team coach.  Stempel was the manager of Apertura champions San Francisco FC, but he also had experience with Panama's U-20s, who he led to their first U-20 World Cup in 2003.  As you can tell from the post-match interview on this clip, Stempel has a very good command of the local language. 

Obviously, Costa Rica needed to hire a new coach for the next round of World Cup qualifying, but why was Panama in a hurry when they had nothing to play for?  The answer is the UNCAF Nations Cup,  which will take place in Panama early next year.  Federation president Ariel Alvarado gave the Cup as the motive for the quick hire. 

In the end, both federations went with coaches who have intimate knowledge of their countries' youth national teams, some of whose graduates now make significant contributions to the senior team.