The selectors of Ecuador, Felix Sanchez, and of Panama, Thomas Christiansenbegan their careers in the FC Barcelonaone as a coach and the other as a footballer. Today they have their national teams qualified for the quarter-finals of the Copa America 2024.
They almost coincided at BarçaChristiansen joined the reserve team in 1991, making his debut in the first team under Johan Cruyff, although after several sessions he left the Catalan club in 1996.
From Barcelona to Ecuador, passing through Qatar
It was precisely eIn 1996, when I was just over 20 years oldwhen Sanchez arrived at La MasiaBarcelona’s training centre, a school from which, among many other talents, Lionel Messi, Josep Guardiola, Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta and now Lamine Yamal have emerged.
Sánchez, now 48, spent a decade at La Masia, absorbing the so-called ‘Barça DNA’, a philosophy of possession and touch football that Cruyff established and which endures to this day. The Catalan coach came to manage Barcelona’s Juvenil A team.
But In 2006 he received an offer to move to Qatar, a country with no footballing tradition but which wanted to develop its own training school through the recently founded Aspire Academy, for which Sánchez and other Barça players went to work.
In 2014 he won the U-19 Asian Cup with the group of footballers he had known for years and who were preparing to represent Qatar at its 2022 World Cup.
He took over the Qatar senior team in 2017, after the departure of Jorge Fossati, leading them to the greatest sporting success in their history: winning the 2019 Asian Cup.
Sánchez’s Qatar would also participate as a guest in the 2019 Copa América, falling in the group stage, and in the 2021 Gold Cup, reaching the semi-finals.
Qatar’s performance at the World Cup was somewhat disappointing, losing all three matches played, but Sanchez had helped change Qatari football forever. With the job donein 2023 he signed for Ecuador.
Christiansen, a Dane in Panama
He has made many more turns in the world of football ChristiansenBorn 51 years ago in Denmark, but to a Spanish mother, lHe joined Barcelona B (now Barcelona Atlètic) at the age of 18.
He rose to fame in 1993, when, while still a player for the Barcelona reserve team, the then Spanish national team coach, Javier Clemente, called him up to play friendlies against Mexico and Lithuania. He played in both, scoring a goal against the Baltic team.
Although I had not passed through La Masia itself, Christiansen was at Barcelona during the ‘Dream Team’s’ best moment.
Cruyff also made him debut with the first teambut shortly after he began an odyssey of sessions at various Spanish clubs until he left Barcelona.
After several more moves through the Spanish, Greek and Danish leagues, his best years came at the end of his career in Germany, when he recovered his goal-scoring instinct that he had forgotten at the Mini Estadi, the now-demolished stadium of the Barça reserve team.
As a coach he has also worked for various clubs, including Leeds United the season before Marcelo Bielsa, before taking charge of his first team, Panama, in 2020.
Christiansen has turned the Panamanian team around since he took over. In his 69 games in charge he has obtained 33 victories, 16 draws and 20 defeats with 115 goals scored and 84 conceded, reaching the final of the Gold Cup last year.
In the 70 games prior to the Danish match, Panama had won 21, drawn 16 and lost 33, with 65 goals scored and 95 conceded.
Both Sánchez and Christiansen were nominated this past 2023 by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) among the twenty best coaches in the world, an award that was won by Lionel Scaloni (Argentina).
The Sánchez’s Ecuador will face Argentina in the quarterfinals of the Copa América, while Panama is still waiting for a rival among Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica.
*With information from EFE.
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