Brazil defeated Panama 18-0, while Puerto Rico and Guyana ended with a 2-2 draw in the men’s competition.
Brazil was the star of the first day of the tournament in the men’s competition of the Pan American Challenge. The tournament started today at Chiclayo city, north of Lima, Peru. They won 18-0 in a great teamwork presentation.
On the second match of Pool A, Puerto Rico played against Guyana, which ended in a 2-2 tie.
The Brazilian squad achieved a comfortable victory over Panama, with a great performance along the whole pitch. Matheus Borges with an outstanding work, was one of the scorers of the match. Bruno Souza, Yuri van de Heijden, Bruno Mendonca, Marcos Pasin and Bruno Paes scored 2 goals each, Lucas Paixao, Paulo Batista, Stephane Vehrle-Smith and Luis Felipe Reus were the authors of the rest.
Based on a hard physical work, Brazil opened the pitch continuously, breaking the Panamanian defense system. “A victory at the beginning of the tournament is very important; it helps decompress the pressure. Our goal is clear: we want to get to the finals us we want to qualify for the Pan American Cup,” said André Patrocinio, captain of the winning team.
“We know we still have mistakes to correct, but these kind of tournaments help us improve,” said Ademir Montenegro, captain of Panama’s team.
In the second match at the pitch of “Colegio San José” in Chiclayo, Puerto Rico and Guyana met.
A GREAT DRAW
On the second match of the morning sports day, Guyana managed to save the first result after trailing 2-0 and leveled the match with Puerto Rico to split points. Puerto Rico was ahead on the scoreboard with goals from Joseph August and Gilberto Monserrate, but later two goals from Guyana’s Branford Aroydy, resulted in a 2-2 draw at the end of the match.
Puerto Rico was close to win the match, as Kenneth Rodriguez missed a penalty corner only 50 seconds away from the end of the match. “We had the chance to define the match, but we couldn’t. A draw is not bad, but we wanted to win. This shows us we have to correct our shortcomings”, said Kelvin Rivera, captain of the Puerto Rican team.
For Guyana, as their captain Devin Munroe thinks, the result is valuable, especially because their country returned to the international arena after being away for almost 8 years.
TOMORROW HOST PERU WILL PLAY
The matches of Pool B will start tomorrow, Sunday 4th. Host Peru will have a hard debut playing against Uruguay at 9:00 (14:00 GMT). The host team will face the challenge to reach the semifinals of the tournament, and on the other hand, they will have to prepare the team for the Pan Am Games, which they will host in 2019. Two hours later Venezuela and Ecuador will meet.
The Pan American Challenge started today at the Colegio San José in Chiclayo, and will carry on until Sunday October 11th. The first two teams of the final qualification will have the right to compete for the Pan American Challenge.
