Panama’s president hopes his team’s presence at the World Cup can aid his country and feels ‘the hardest game’ is out of the way

The president of Panama spent Monday night watching England play football. Juan Carlos Varela, who signed an emergency decree declaring a public holiday the night the country qualified for the World Cup for the first time, was with the national team at their hotel by the Black Sea when Harry Kane scored.

Earlier, he had been in Sochi’s Fisht Stadium a kilometre away to see Panama make their debut against Belgium. And despite a 3-0 defeat Varela, hopping from foot to foot, kicking an imaginary ball as he relives a historic evening, says he is proud of his players. He also feels Panama’s hard game is now out of the way – even though it’s England next. He had been studying them after all.

Three days before Varela had been sitting alongside Vladimir Putin in Red Square – and that, he says, is a demonstration of the power and reach of football. According to Varela, president since 2014 and invited to the opera gala on the eve of the tournament, the World Cup not only represents a unique opportunity for the players but for a nation whose reputation was hit by the Panama Papers revelations and which continues to seek solutions to the social problems confronted by its toughest neighbourhoods. In April last year, the Panama midfielder Amílcar Henríquez was shot over 20 times outside his home in Colón.

“When I saw our flag come out with the other 31 in Moscow, it was very emotional. And when I had the chance to go to the opera alongside president Putin …” he says smiling, the sentence trailing off. “It wasn’t the president sitting alongside Putin, it was the players because I was representing them. I told them: ‘I didn’t do anything to be sitting there; it was you.’ The only way I could have been there was because the national team was playing at the World Cup. I can go on a state visit to Moscow, visit Putin, or Trump, China, Theresa May, but sit alongside Putin at the opera? I thanked the players for allowing me to be here. Two hours at the opera, listening and chatting to the Russian president about things, political questions, peace, social issues, even Syria.

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“Football is not just the sport itself but what it means socially, how it brings people together. To see the stadium full with almost 45,000 people and to hear that it was mostly supporting us – not just people from Panama but Panamanians from around the world. I saw a Belgian married to a Panamanian, one in each kit. Football is a lovely party. We didn’t know Russia and they don’t know Latin America. Listening to 40,000 Peruvians was incredible. And seeing the Panama flag everywhere in Sochi, I owe that to these lads.

“It’s been very important for the team to qualify, especially when you see the cost of the teams. We’re talking about teams with players whose values are $700m, which speaks for the effort of these lads. Above all, it sends a message to young people in the barrios [marginal neighbourhoods], those at social risk, and shows them you can overcome obstacles, you can be someone in life by taking the right path. This is not just an on-field victory but a victory in the barrios. It is a great seed that’s been planted, the beginning of something. The country ground to halt today; this has united everyone.

“Henríquez’s death was a very sad moment for us and it left a scar. But these players are an example for the kids in the barrio. The problem is poor leadership, bad examples, economics. But when they see these lads, that creates a model to follow. We can all help, everyone in their field: them on the pitch, me with the country’s security.”

Varela says there are plans to build an elite performance centre, as Costa Rica did; develop youth football, which is almost entirely lacking in structure; and encourage private investment in the clubs and a league which is yet to generate significant income.

“The World Cup puts Panama on the map,” he says. “Being in Russia is a great honour and it positions Panama: the entire planet sees Panamanian players against England and Belgium. Imagine it in marketing terms: you begin with the premise that what matters is that they know your name, then that they have a good impression of you, then maybe they decide to visit the country, look for a product. Panama can be heard, known, and project itself through sport.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois stretches to stop a shot by Panama’s Michael Murillo. Photograph: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images

Is that particularly important after the Panama Papers? “Without doubt,” Varela says. “This helps people to see the real Panama, which is a country of people fighting, making an effort to get on, to move forward. The famous Papers was a very specific situation at a specific moment: there was a desire to define the country by that, when Panama is much more than that. ‘Legal services’ are not even 0.1% of our economy.

“Panama has the canal, it has ports, the most important air hub in Latin America, one of the most important financial centres in the world … this World Cup also gives us the opportunity to show people [that] Panama.”

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Above all, it gives Panama a chance to show its footballers. “In the first half, we saw a team that played football against the third strongest side in the world, a team that’s one of the favourites to win the competition,” Varela says. “It’s not just playing your first game; it’s competing with dignity as we did. There were even chances to have scored.

“Before the game, I said to them: when these three games end – or further along, as we don’t know what will happen – you must feel like they’ve done everything they wanted to. That’s what matters. I saw an organised, structured team that despite the scoreline never collapsed. We showed we can play football.”

“Afterwards, I congratulated them. So it was 3-0? Yes but I felt very happy. We put up a defence and three or four times we stopped Belgium, some of the world’s best players. We had the chance for 1-1, a great chance for Michael Amir Murillo. They stopped him, incredibly. The first goal was unstoppable. The second and third we could have [done more]. When you drop concentration a moment, a team like Belgium can score. The tiniest thing: goal. I told them this is an opportunity for them too: maybe some of the best clubs see them and come for them.”

And then the president settled in to watch England. “I was studying them with the lads,” he says. In the hotel, a roar could be heard late on. Was that them? Did you want England to score? Varela laughs. “What I want is for Panama to score,” comes the reply. “But we feel the hard game was today’s.”

England are going to be easy, then? “I didn’t say that!” he says, laughing. “All the games will be hard for us but the hardest was today.” The most historic, too.