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NederlandQatar will open their 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup campaign at BBVA Stadium in Houston when they battle Panama on Tuesday.
The Crimsons will be making their first appearance at this tournament, while Panama will hope to bounce back from their recent defeat to Mexico, 3-0 in a friendly at the end of June.
Match preview
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As invited guests for this competition, Qatar will get a first-hand look into how teams from CONCACAF play, information that could be extremely valuable with the World Cup scheduled for next year.
This competition will serve as a good tuneup for their big moment on the international stage when they host the World Cup in 2022, and they will be out to prove that even though they did not have to qualify for the Gold Cup, they deserve to play against the best teams in this region.
Manager Felix Sanchez has chosen a squad consisting of 23 players who are all currently featuring at club level in Qatar with Al-Sadd, Al-Duhail, Al-Gharafa and one player representing Al-Rayyan (Abdulaziz Hatem).
In their final game before this tournament, they overcame a red card in the 20th minute but still managed to beat El Salvador 1-0, despite having only 31% possession.
As the fourth-highest ranked team at the Gold Cup and having already beaten a CONCACAF side this year, they will not fear any team in this competition.
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Panama will hope to take everything they learned from their first World Cup experience and put it into this competition, which saw them reach the semi-finals in 2011 and 2015, while qualifying for the knockout stage on every occasion since 2005.
While they lost all three of their matches at the World Cup in 2018, that appearance gave the nation a lot of global attention.
Only nine players from their World Cup squad were chosen by new boss Thomas Christiansen for this tournament, which shows that this side is going through changes with so many players playing competitively at club level.
The Panamanians have played plenty of international fixtures this year (eight), so they should not be rusty on Tuesday, but lately, they have struggled to create many quality scoring opportunities, going goalless in their last two games, failing to register a shot on target versus Mexico.
They are, however, coming into a competition that they are very familiar with, and they have had a lot of success in the early stages of this tournament, losing only one group stage fixture since 2011.
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Team News
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Akram Afif has established himself as one of the premier strikers for Qatar with 19 goals in 64 appearances, and he is currently tied with his teammate Boualem Khoukhi for ninth all-time, just one behind Sayed Ali Bechir.
Striker Hassan Al-Haydos is the all-time leader in caps with 141, while at the back, this team can count on the experience of Abdelkarim Hassan, who has made 103 appearances.
Central defender Adolfo Machado will play in his fourth Gold Cup for Panama, having earned 90 caps all-time, which is still significantly less than his teammate, midfielder Armando Cooper, who has made 114 appearances for the national side.
Panama have been rotating their top two keepers back and forth lately, with Jose Calderon conceding three of the five shots he faced versus Mexico, while Luis Mejia started in their previous two fixtures, earning a clean sheet against Curacao.
Qatar possible starting lineup:
Al Sheeb; Hassan, Al-Rawi, Khoukhi; Madibo, Al-Haydos, Boudiaf, Hatem; Ali, Muntari, Afif
Panama possible starting lineup:
Mejia; Peralta, Machado, Davis, Palacios; Griffith, Godoy, Yanis, Camargo; Aguilar, Torres
We say: Qatar 2-1 Panama
There is probably no side at this competition who are as familiar with one another as this Qatari side, with many of them teammates at club level, and they are well organized and tough to break down, having conceded only one shot on target in their last three matches.
Panama knows what it takes to make it out of the group stage of this tournament, but three of their four defenders are in their 30s, and they could be penalized for pace against a young and dynamic attack.
