CANAL PLUS!
Skipper Tejada: We may not have your money, but we’ve got plenty going for us
PANAMA star Luis Tejada stuck the boot into England’s millionaires, taunting: “You can’t bring your money on to the pitch.”
The veteran 36-year-old striker is a legend in Panama with 43 goals in 104 games. In the wage stakes though, Tejada isn’t in the same league as Harry Kane and the rest of Gareth Southgate’s minted stars – with the England captain (right) banking an eye-watering £200,000 a week, after signing a new six-year deal at Tottenham before the World Cup. But that doesn’t worry journeyman Tejada, currently playing for Peruvian side Sports Boys – his 19th club of a 17-year career that’s also taken in Panama, Colombia, Abu Dhabi, Mexico and the MLS in America.
“We know England are a strong team and that Kane is a very good player,” he said.
“He is becoming a great goalscorer – but, just like us, it is his first World Cup too, likewise the other young England players.
“They might earn a lot more money than us – but they cannot bring their money on to the pitch with them.”
When you play for Panama, nicknamed Los Canaleros – The Canal Men – you don’t do it for the cash. Coach Hernan Dario Gomez and his players are reputed to be the lowest-paid international manager and squad at the World Cup.
But Tejada is promising Southgate and his wealthy Premier League superstars won’t have it easy against the Central Americans in Nizhny Novgorod on Sunday.
“We know the European teams look at us and think we are from a lower level, that they have a better, more competitive league, and we cannot deny that is true,” said Tejada (left).
“But we are here to prove ourselves, and I hope England have a really bad night against us because, if they do, we can overcome them.
“We have the same dreams as every other team, we just have to believe in ourselves more.” Tejada came on as a secondhalf substitute in Panama’s opening 3-0 defeat by star-studded Belgium, but by then his side were 2-0 down and in damage-limitation mode. And the striker revealed Panama’s players will be more relaxed and better able to do themselves justice against the Three Lions, having been beset with nerves and emotion against Belgium in their first-ever game at a World Cup.
“We will study the videos and we will be prepared,” he added. “We have got over the emotions of the first game and need to control this one better and be more concentrated.”
They also need to be more disciplined – with a flurry of fouls and yellow cards against Belgium threatening to make them the dirtiest team at the tournament.
Anibal Godoy, Edgar Barcenas, Michael Amir Murillo, Eric Davis and Armando Cooper were all booked in Sochi.
Another booking for any of them would rule them out of the last game against Tunisia in Saransk.